The Snow Globe
by Tuesdays
Summary: "It's forever, dearie," he had said, and he meant it. A darker take on Belle's stay in the Dark Castle where she is torn between love and hatred for her captor, especially when the Evil Queen offers her a way out. But Belle must make her decision before the clouds of a powerful curse gather over Fairy Tale Land...
1. I

I

Every day she would wander through the sprawling gardens, which lay silent and motionless every day again. She would stroll along the paths of cracked flagstones, the beds of still, dark roses and the trees with wide flat leaves that never fell, until she inevitably hit upon the wall that sealed off the garden from the rest of the world. She knew the wall well: at least three times her height, built of rough-hewn stone grown thickly with moss. She had followed the wall all the way around time and again; she used to keep one eye out for a hidden, overgrown gate that she had somehow managed to overlook, and another on the large dark shape, half-mansion half-castle, that towered in the middle of the gardens, turrets and steep roofs emerging slowly as she circled it. The many windows were tightly curtained and sealed, she knew – but the master came and went as he pleased, and had a way of knowing where she was.

She had by now given up hope of ever finding a way over or under or through the wall, but walked the same circular route day after day because it had become a routine. Just like it had become routine to pause every time she passed the old ash tree that grew close to the wall, and to clamber up to its higher branches.

The first time she had done this, a lifetime ago, it had been in a moment of sobbing desperation which had banished all thoughts of deals struck and trades made from her head. It had been a mad scramble to get over the wall, if only for a moment, to escape the cloying feeling that she was crumbling slowly to dust within these walls. She had pulled herself up among the leaves and crept along the single branch whose tip reached _across _the wall, still so high up that she could see nothing on the other side except for bland blue sky.

For several long, long moments she had refused to acknowledge that the wall came no closer, and the tree trunk went no further, although she clawed her way along as fast as she could, more and more frantically until she had to stop or fall the long way to the gravel below. She was pathetically suspended in mid-air, neither here nor there, when she noticed something through her tears. The branch on which she crouched was lush with dark green leaves, gleaming dully – up until the wall. If she craned her neck she could just make out the tip that extended into the space on the other side. The leaves outside the garden were stained deep reds, yellows and browns.

She had come back every day after that and climbed the tree. The autumn leaves had been brown and crumpled the next day; the branch tip was pitifully thin and bare the day after that; and on the fourth day, the sky on the other side of the wall had been awhirl with snowflakes falling heavily, sometimes swept to one side by a wind she couldn't feel; not a leaf stirred on her side of the wall. She had had the uncanny sensation of being in an inside-out snow globe – trapped all alone in a bubble of glass while the snow whirled _outside_ and out of reach, a thought that filled her with such despair that she had fled back down to the ground where she couldn't see.

It had been several days before she had been able to bring herself to go up there again. When she did, the leaves were back – tiny, still tightly furled, and the most tender shade of green.


	2. II

II

He had smiled as he spoke, the master-before-he-became -her-master. "I am looking," he had said, "for a caretaker. For my rather large estate."

Her memories were starting to fade one by one, but she remembered that. She could also recall with painstaking clarity the light pressure of his hand on her waist as he led her out of the echoing throne room, full of people but gravely silent, and gallantly showed her through the first door in the corridor – one which had led to the guards' chamber for as long as she had lived. Instead, she had found herself in a large, unfamiliar dining room, draped in red; looking over her shoulder she could still see a slice of the corridor of her father's castle through the open door.

Following her glance, he had laughed the shrill laugh she had heard in the throne room. "Oh, that's right," he had said and closed the door with an elaborate flourish, then opened it again like a conjuror doing a trick for her benefit – gone was the corridor; she looked out into a darkened hallway now. The last glimpse of her home had gone before she had had time to commit it to memory.

"That's all over and done with," he said. "I suggest you forget all about it. It's what I do."

She nodded, without looking at him; the moment of blind courage that had come over her in the throne room had abandoned her and she suddenly felt very alone. The word her father had used had come back to her, pounding like a heartbeat in her chest. _Beast. Beast. Beast. _

Impervious, he said: "I'll show you to your room." He had already turned to lead the way when she had blurted out: "What is your name?"

He whirled around as if stung. "What?" he snapped.

"What do I call you?" she asked, cringing.

He appeared to collect himself with an effort. "I'm your master now, dearie," he said. "You have no business calling me anything." A sly finger pointed at her. "But what about your name?"

A cold tingle had crept down her spine. She did not trust the gleam in his eyes, the leering quality of his smile, and she had scraped together what courage she had left. "I won't tell you," she said. "That wasn't part of our deal."

For a long moment he had been silent. Then he shrugged, and leaned in uncomfortably close to study her face with an assessing eye that made it hard to continue looking at him. "Fair enough, dearie," he said, in a voice that was almost tender. "I will call you Belle."

She had expected to wake through her first night in the castle, to spend it pacing up and down the large, musty bedroom the master had shown her to and locked securely behind her, trapped like an animal in a cage. But as it was, Belle had slept like the dead, overcome by an irresistible heaviness only moments after she had thrown herself face-down on the bed to cry – she had realized she had not even said good-bye to her father.

Waking up from blissfully dreamless sleep to the unfamiliar velvet canopy over her head and damp sheets that had wrapped around her legs while she slept was no relief. It was with a heavy feeling that she dragged herself from the bed and, by the light of a single candle, found her way to the windows. They were covered in thick damask curtains which refused to open. She tugged, then yanked; they stayed in place as if nailed down, although there were no constraints that she could see. She could not even pry her fingers between them to catch the faintest glimpse of light – or absence thereof – on the other side. It had been night when she had left her home; she had assumed it would be morning now, but there was no way of telling, and she was starting to doubt herself.

She found her door unlocked and in a craze that felt like it lasted hours she had haunted the castle with a candle in her hand, going from window to window. The place was completely, deathly silent except for her satin slippers thudding on carpets and parquet and marble as she rushed up and down broad stairs and down long, deserted corridors, starting at the sight of her own reflection in large mirrors in cavernous rooms. At first she had called for him, by lack of a name shouting "Master! Master!" until it became clear to her that he was not there. He had somehow left the house while she was asleep. She could not have said how, because the massive front door in the large hall would budge no more than the curtains did. This, then, was a part of the master's peculiar magic: his lair was completely closed off from the outside world and now she was too, like a rat in a box. In a burst of furious energy she had dashed from room to room lighting every candle and every torch she saw – although the house was so large and rambling that she was exhausted before she could have covered even a quarter. Despite her fatigue it was with a sense of rebellious satisfaction that she had stridden through the brightly illuminated red dining room. Let this be the sight to greet the master when he returned! She had left every single light burning when she retreated to her bedroom to rest. She would not have cared if the whole house had burned down.

When Belle awoke again, for a few moments it seemed as if she had dreamed waking up before. A single candle burned by the side of her bed; the rest of her room was drenched in darkness. She sat up as another wave of defeat rolled over her, and with slow movements she had gone to the kitchens, where – although the kitchens were as dark and unused as the rest of the house – she had found the larders stocked to overflowing: shelves weighed down with loaves of bread and round cheeses, great sacks of flour and sugar, bowls of eggs, round barrels of butter and sides of mutton and beef, vats of ale and racks upon racks of wine bottles. She had eaten, although she wasn't hungry. It had done nothing about the empty, desolate feeling.

Upon returning she was startled to find the master in the red dining room as if he had materialized out of thin air, his small slim frame standing by the large, spindly spinning wheel that perched in the corner. His back was turned towards her, and he turned the wheel slowly with one hand, speaking almost as if to himself. But she heard every word clearly across the room.

"I trust you won't waste your time again, dearie," he said. "We didn't strike a deal for nothing."

And so Belle had gotten to work, as he had instructed. She fetched straw, large bundles of it, from the storage rooms to stack neatly beside spinning wheel, and lugged the bundles of spun gold to the last in a series of twenty-six rooms, piled floor to ceiling with riches that would have fed her father's duchy for a year. She wandered among the metallically gleaming piles indifferently; the gold was as meaningful in this house as the straw. She cleaned, dusting and brushing away cobwebs and mopping endless stretches of stone floors. It seemed to make little difference in the massive, dark house, and the mountains of straw just seemed to replenish themselves like the food in the larders of the large kitchens. They were clearly intended to cook for an entire court once but now used only for the plain meals she prepared for herself, and the more elaborate ones she served in the red dining room when the master was home. She would walk in to find him sitting in his customary place at the head of the table as if he had always been there, his long fingers entwined in front of him. "Thank you, dearie," he would say, when she put the platters in front of him. He never ate much, however; he sat mostly in silence, eating little bites, as she stood in mute attendance by the wall waiting to clear the plates and serve tea.

Time went by, but there was no telling how much. Belle slept when she was tired, as there was no distinction to be made between night and day – the curtains were never to open and there was no clock to be found. It was as if she lived in a haunted house, and she was the ghost: a pale wraith in the yellow silk gown she had worn when she had left her home and which grew faded and threadbare, then tore. It was the only tangible reminder she had that there was a world outside this eternal gloom, and it was coming apart at the seams.

"You look atrocious," the master finally said in his drawling voice. "A princess reduced to rags. What would your father say if he knew you'd let yourself go like that?"

He had once again appeared in the dining room waiting silently for dinner, which she had served mutely as ever.

"I have no other clothes."

He waved a languid hand. "There should be some in the wardrobe in your room."

"Those belong to someone else."

"Well," he said, "she's long gone now, and as it is you're offending my eyes."

"As you wish," she said stiffly.

"My, my," he murmured, laying down his fork, "why so petulant?"

"I'm not happy here."

"Was never part of our deal." When she didn't respond, he gestured expansively. "Enlighten me, then."

"I can never leave."

"True."

"I can never get out of this house and see daylight." There was a tremor in her voice that she couldn't suppress.

He studied her closely over his entwined fingers. "I wouldn't be so sure about that," he finally said softly. "A little mouse can always find her way in and out of a big old house like this."

"How?" she whispered. "Where would a mouse find a way out?"

He laughed his odd laugh. "We are talking about a mouse, are we not? I would say, look where the cheese and the bread crumbs are."

The next time she had been in the larder she had caught sight – just as she was about to turn and leave – of something round gleaming in the deep shadows in the back of the larder. It was, she realized after a heartbeat, a brass door knob. She dropped the loaf of bread she was holding and darted forwards, moving aside the sacks of flour and the bushels of dried herbs, and uncovered a small, arched door. It had been half-concealed but she knew with instant certainty that it had not been there before.

She had held her breath as she turned the door knob, half-expecting it to be a cruel prank, to hear his high-pitched laugh behind her. But it swung open effortlessly, admitting a radiant burst from outside that blinded her even as she plunged into it, rushing through the door before it could disappear. This was how she found herself in the garden, running and stumbling blindly as her eyes adjusted to the sudden abundance of bright, white light. She was not thinking of the deal by which she had sold herself into slavery; she was, at that moment, completely determined to run and run and never return. She had cried out in despair when she hit upon the wall, ran along it in the hopes of finding a gate, and had then spotted the large ash tree with the protruding branch.

After she had realized that it was autumn outside the master's garden, she had sat at the foot of the wall for a long time. It had been winter when she left home.


	3. III

_AN: Hey everyone, so here is the third chapter of my fanfiction. I only made an account last week and this is actually my first attempt at fanfiction EVER, so I would really appreciate reviews! After reading some other fanfictions I got the feeling that I'm doing more story-setting and taking longer to get to the plot than most, but I've always wondered about Belle's life in the Dark Castle before she and Rumple fell in love. So I hope some of you have an opinion to share about that! Thanks for reading!_

III

The day had come when Belle had had to leave the rags of her yellow gown, tenderly folded, in the back of her wardrobe. She chose a plain blue dress from among the row of garments – one of the signs that another girl had lived in her room once, like the old hairpins on the dresser and an earring she had found under her pillow. Whoever she had been had been small and slender, too; the dress fitted perfectly and Belle had studied herself in the mirror for a long time. There was the same face as always over the strange blue dress - the pale skin that would burn mercilessly after summer afternoons spent on the river banks; the curling auburn hair that looked like a bird's nest first thing in the morning; and the bright blue eyes, inherited from a mother who had died before she could remember her. It was the face exactly as she had seen it the morning she had woken up at home for the last time, although she wasn't to know it.

For a long time after her arrival, Belle had been in such a state of shock that, when she wasn't wiping and cleaning with furious vigour or wandering through the gardens like a lost soul, she spent her time lying in her bed staring up at the canopy in a depressed stupor. She was desperately homesick, conjuring the faces of her father and everyone from home before her mind's eye every night before she went to sleep, and almost relished the thought of wasting away until the Master _had_ to send her home, if only for a brief visit. But if he ever considered letting her go he gave no sign of it and as it turned out, Belle was not the kind of person to be broken so soon. Over time her memories of home had grown less vivid and with a strength she never knew she had, she had finally gotten out of bed and taken to exploring the Dark Castle and the surrounding gardens. There were still signs that other people had lived here once, ages and ages ago, and in the many, many hours she had to kill she made it a sport to hunt for these signs of life. Playing explorer _had_ been her favourite game when she was a child, and there wasn't much else to keep her from going insane.

There were the pale marble statues, half-hidden between the shrubbery along the garden paths, that someone – not the Master, she was sure – had sculpted and placed here, asymmetric figures with missing arms and noses now. An angular "B" had been scratched into the bark of a willow tree by the pond. And in some bushes she had found a child's wooden toy sword, snapped in two; a child had lived here, once upon a time. She cherished every splinter of her discovery.

In the castle she had seen oil paintings of strange men and women, closets full of old-fashioned clothing, reading spectacles abandoned on writing desks, one frozen little breakfast room with a full breakfast set out – completely untouched – as if the breakfasters had only stepped out for a moment. And she had stumbled by chance upon a room that confirmed her find in the garden: it had clearly belonged to a young boy once. There was a muddy pair of boots thrown in the corner behind the door and an array of pinecones and tin soldiers and a half-deflated ball under the bed. Holding up the clothes found in the drawers against her own body – they were almost big enough to fit her – she guessed he had been twelve, maybe thirteen. But who had he been? Could it be that the Master had lived here himself growing up? Had it been another prisoner in the Dark Castle? Or could it be that the Master had had a son once? She found it hard to believe that he could have been human enough to father a son, however, to have loved someone and lived with him here as a family.

But then again, the Dark Castle, although she had endless hours to explore it, didn't tell her anything about her Master. Of the thousands of doors in the vast place, there was only a single room that was locked to her, and this was the room she assumed was the Master's study. She knew the room in which he slept, which was as impersonal as could be – a simple wooden bed, almost a cot, a washing basin and a wardrobe where he kept the clothes she laundered – but she suspected that his _real _room was this study, where he did whatever it was the Master actually _did_. He spent the vast majority of the time he was home in there with the door firmly locked, often until well after Belle had gone to sleep. She had tiptoed up to the door once or twice to lay her ear against the door in the hopes of hearing something to tell her what he was doing, but there seemed to be only complete silence on the other side. It was, she assumed, just another spell cast on the door to keep intruders out; one time when he was away, she had made an attempt to pick the lock with an old hair pin, only to have the end of the pin melt away into nothing as soon as it entered the lock. She had looked at the short stub of the pin that was left, thanking the heavens she hadn't stuck her pinkie in, first.

But the truth was that her exploration missions around the castle didn't change the fact that the times when the Master was home were the only times when something _happened_, when something was different. It was the only proof that she wasn't the only person left on earth, the only person she saw who wasn't a crumbling statue or dark oil painting. Much as she hated him, she needed him. And as her loneliness began to overcome her fear she was more and more drawn to him – after all, there wasn't much more he could do to her now.

"You've been working an awfully long time," she said casually once, when he had emerged from his study after what had seemed like an eternity.

"Oh, but I've got all the time in the world for this."

"It's something special, then," she ventured.

"_Very _special." He seemed in particularly good spirits that day. "Let's just say that when I'm done with this little _gizmo,_ no children will escape me next time I hunt them for their pelts!"

Belle froze – the word came back again, grimmer than before. _Beast. _

He regarded her with indulgent amusement. "That was a quip," he said. "Not serious." He cackled. "What, did you think I'd have you skinning children next?" He had side-stepped the question of what he was really working on, however, and Belle decided not to pursue it.

Better to save his favours for the request that had been growing in the back of her mind for a long time. She was not sure what to make of the erratically jumping seasons outside the garden wall, and she could tell that her memory was starting to grow holes. When she called to mind the faces of her family and friends, she realized that she was already losing their faces and voices with alarming speed – they were fading away out of her grasp, and there was nothing she could do about it. She knew instinctively that it had something to do with the enchantments on the castle, and although he had told her their deal was forever, she couldn't help but hope that he might let her leave the castle for just a brief visit, if she built it up and started with a small request first. The Master was fickle, though, so the issue was to ask him at the right time. Although he was unpredictable, she had by then learned to divine his moods as far as that was humanly possible.

He was in gleeful good spirits sometimes, speaking to her in the same leering tone in which he had quipped about the children pelts; sometimes he was in a bad mood, his voice clipped and irritable, slamming down his fork with his food barely tasted; sometimes he was listless, leaning on one elbow as he ate. They corresponded to his progress on the mysterious project in the work room and to events in the outside world, she knew, although it was impossible to get him into specifics.

"You seem cheerful," she had tried a few times when his mood was good, and he had laughed his high-pitched laugh. _MwaHA. _

"War time is the best time for striking deals, dearie," he might say, "but then, you would know all about that." Or: "A deal's a deal, and someone has learned that valuable lesson today." When she would pry further in her most casual tone – "Is it a big war? Who learned the lesson?" – he would wag his finger at her and say: "Such a_ curious _dearie."

But no matter what his mood, on the occasions when he would sit himself by his spinning wheel and spin those endless coils of gold, he would turn quiet and earnest, his slim frame upright but relaxed. She had chosen this time, when had taken to his spinning after his meal, to make her request. It seemed to her that this was when he was in the most obliging mood.

"Why do you spin so much?" she had started, looking at the gleam of gold in the candlelight. "You've spun straw into more gold than you could ever spend."

"I like to watch the wheel," he had said in a soft voice. "It helps me forget."

"Forget what?"

He sat frozen for a few seconds and she held her breath in sympathy, expecting the first real answer he had ever given her. Then "I guess it worked," he said, and his face split in a wide grin as he laughed his usual _MwaHA_. Caught unawares, she laughed too – a spark of humour she didn't know she still possessed. She thought she saw a glimmer of something in his eyes in the brief moment before he turned back to his spinning, his face lowered attentively to his work.

"I'm forgetting, too," she said, sinking down on one of the dining room chairs unasked while she watched him. "But unlike you, I'm forgetting things I want to remember forever."

The wheel turned, creaking softly; the golden thread ran between his thin fingers.

"Nothing ever changes in this house," she continued, "in the few years that I've been here…" She shrewdly waited for him to correct her, to tell her how many years exactly, but when he remained silent she continued determinedly. "I am starting to forget what it's like to see time take its course. I wish – I just wish I had something from the world outside, to tell me the truth about what happens there."

He didn't respond or even look up. But she knew he was listening.

Belle was on her knees scrubbing the vast floor of the large hall. She had lugged a large bucket of suds there to start this momentous task and had gradually gotten into it. As she scrubbed, splashing freely with she soapy water, she sang the old lullaby about the nightingale to herself because it echoed nicely between the marble walls and there was no one around to hear. Or so she thought; looking up to wring the rag over her bucket, she suddenly realized that the Master was watching her from beneath the gallery, leaned against a pillar.

"Did you need something?" she asked, dropping the rag and running a hand over her forehead to brush the hair out of her face. How long had he been there?

"On the contrary, dearie," he said. "I have something for _you_." He approached her slowly, holding one hand behind his back.

"For me?"

"It seemed there was no harm in offering my housekeeper a little token of my appreciation," he said, and presented his gift: a single red rose.

Her face brightened immediately. "Oh, it's beautiful," she said, reaching out to take it. For a moment she thought she saw something in his eyes, had the feeling that he didn't want to give her the flower, and she was overcome by the feeling that something was very off – but then he handed it to her with an extravagant bow. She accepted it with a curtsey. "Where did you get it?" she asked, inhaling deeply over the petals. The flower was in full bloom, and the sweet scent was strong.

"Just an old woman selling flowers," he replied. "You know I make it my business to strike deals, not grant wishes. But we haven't had fairy godmothers in this house for centuries, and you did say you wished for…how did you put it so poetically…something to tell you the truth about what happens in the world outside."

"I did," she said. "Thank you."

"Don't thank me, dearie," he said in a low voice. "Just treasure it while it lasts."

"What –" she started, but he had already turned and was sauntering towards the door, whistling tunelessly under his breath.

She looked at the rose again, thrilling with happiness. The rose had grown on sunshine _outside_, rain that fell _outside_, had felt the touch of bees and butterflies: the rose came from the same world as her family and friends. She heard a door close and when she looked up again, the Master had disappeared. And at the same time, a shocking change came over the flower in her hand. At first it seemed to open wider, appearing almost to blossom more as if rearing up to the very fullest – then she realized that it was rapidly and unstoppably dying, its outer petals curling at the edges as the whole flower sagged in upon itself, growing darker and then black at the edges. The flower shed dry petals once by one as she ran to the door after the Master.

"Master!" she screamed into the corridor, even though it was empty and she knew that he was gone. The pathetic, empty stalk in her hand degraded to dust that slipped between her fingers; the flower was supposed to tell her the truth about what happened in the world outside. And it was completely and undeniably dead.


	4. IV

_Thanks so much for the kind reviews, everyone! (Princess Tiannah, you were quite spot-on with yours.)_

IV

Belle stormed through the garden like a madwoman, dashing down the garden paths and along the mirror-smooth pond, which were as still as ever. She did not even know exactly what she was looking for, what to take out her unbearable anxiety on – until she caught sight of the roses. Panting, she threw herself down on her knees by the rose beds. She wanted to tear the flowers out by the roots and fling them across the garden, the _Master's _damn roses; to then find a sturdy stick and crack the heads off the statues one by one, the _Master's _damn statues. But she couldn't. The roses bent obligingly when she tore at their heads, but were anchored solidly in the earth, deeper than she could dig; the statues endured the beating with patient, dull thuds but stayed intact. With a shriek of pure fury and frustration she flung the stick back into the bushes and darted back to the house, through the small door into the larder. She grabbed a plate off the nearest kitchen shelf and threw it on the floor with all her might – with a loud _clang _it skittered away unbroken, the _Master's _damn plate. Breathing heavily she leaned with both hands on the kitchen counter, trying to compose herself when her eye fell on the large kitchen scissors and another idea occurred to her. Holding her breath, she held up a curling lock of her own hair and cut – but the hair, thought soft and flexible between her fingers, resisted the blades like copperwire. She turned the scissors around in her hand and without hesitation drove the sharpest point of one of the blades down into the fingertip of her other hand. She pressed down long and hard, although it hurt so much that her eyes watered. But when she lifted the blade, there was just the briefest dimple in her fingertip that smoothed out without a drop of blood. The _Master's _damn caretaker.

_I could have known_, it kept going through her head. _Oh, I could have known it was so clear if only I had put the signs together, so why didn't I why didn't I why didn't I? _It was always night in the house, and always day in the garden, and it had come to feel almost as if she was the master of her own time. If she went into the garden and back into the house again, it was as if a day had passed. If she did it again, another day was gone. But she had been fooling herself. She had seen the erratically jumping seasons at the tip of the ash tree's branch but relied on her own _feeling _that no more than a few years could have passed; she had been fooled by the fact that neither her hair nor nails had grown and her face had not changed one bit, even when her dress had aged so quickly and had fallen apart around her. It had taken the rose to prove it: everything that was brought in from outside seemed to disintegrate and die, obeying another set of rules, except for the things that were the master's property and lived by _his_ clock – including herself. But what was his clock? What was happening outside her bubble, to her loved ones who were not suspended in time?

In the end, there was nothing to do but wait for the Master to return. All these thoughts going round and round in her head was driving her crazy. She needed to shout them at someone. She needed him to answer her questions. So she waited for him at the table in his red dining room. He didn't come.

Although her anger had kept her alert at first, as time passed by in the gloomy, darkened room she found her chin sinking down on her chest again and again, until she startled awake with her head resting on her arms on the table, and her back stiff and cramped. Hunger drove her to the kitchen; when she returned, the dining room was still empty.

In her imagination, Belle would leave the Dark Castle as it was, not dusting another stick of furniture until the Master returned. Her side of their "deal" would be null and void until she could _demand_ an explanation of him and take a stand for once in her life. But in reality, she found herself going back to work before very long because she desperately needed the distraction, which was better than sitting in the red dining room rapping her fingers on the table top, with nothing to occupy her but her thoughts. What if he _isn't_ coming back? It shot through her head. Her prime source of concern was the rose. Offering her that "gift" was so unlike him; he had never done anything remotely like it before. What if it had been his twisted, grotesque version of a farewell? What if _this_ was his true sport, the reason he had brought her here: to let her grown dependent on him and then go away one day when the mood struck him, leaving her here to haunt the castle by herself until she had become a shrieking lunatic? Maybe he had done it before, to countless other girls. Who did the clothes in her wardrobe belong to, after all? The dress she was wearing at that very moment? A cold shiver ran down her back. _Beast. Beast. Beast. _Her father had told her so. She had been naïve, thinking herself miserable before when in fact it had only been the build-up to this.

The most humiliating thing of all, which she could barely admit even to herself, was that she had been so sure that, in his own way, he had come to _like _her – she had thought she saw it the night he was at his spinning wheel, the moment of hesitation before he gave her the rose. Part of her still hoped and wished fervently that the Master would come back, and she hated herself for it. There was nothing more desperately pathetic than a captive yearning for her captor. These thoughts tortured her, along with nightmares of girls – girls like her – who had been banished to remote corners of the castle until now and had waited until the Master was gone to come claim her, crawl into her room and drag her wailing from her bed as soon as she had closed her eyes. The only thing that helped was to wash the dark thoughts away with heavy buckets of water, drawn from the echoing well in the very bottom of the castle, scrubbing every marble floor in the Dark Castle until her whole body ached.

When she came into the dining room, exhausted, to find the Master's familiar figure at his usual place at the head of the dining table as if he had never left, she stood reeling for several moments. Perversely, there was a flicker of joy at the sight of his back, the now-familiar slope of his shoulders, the messy locks of his hair. He was back.

The tremor in her voice was equal parts resentment and relief when she finally said hoarsely: "You've come back."

He did not turn to look at her. "Keenly observed, dearie."

She edged around slowly to face him. He reclined in his seat like always, and yet he seemed different – reluctant to talk to her.

"You've never been away this long before."

"How would you know how long I've ever been away?" he asked softly.

If Belle had been calmer she would have noticed the tension in in his voice, and known that he was ready to snap. But her shock and relief were fading away slowly, pushed aside by her rising anger. "No, I wouldn't," she said sharply. "You've made sure of that."

He didn't respond.

"Why did you give me that rose?" she asked bluntly.

"I suppose I thought it was time you knew the truth, dearie," he said. "The truth _is _what you said you wanted."

"So tell me the truth," she said, her voice rising. "Stop playing your coward's games, hiding behind your locked doors and vague allusions – "

It was the word "coward" that was the trigger. He reared unexpectedly out of his seat, his dark eyes alive with a sudden fury to match her own. "You want me to tell you?" he snarled, advancing towards her. "Do you want me to _show _you?" In spite of herself, she shrank back as he reached down and pulled a small hand mirror out of his belt. "Look then!" He grabbed her wrist, holding it like a vice while she wrenched to pull free. For his slight frame he was shockingly strong as he pushed the mirror's handle roughly into her hand. "Isn't a picture worth a thousand words? Look. _Look_!" And into the mirror's reflection he snapped: "Maurice's castle."

Before Belle's eyes, the mirror's reflection changed. Her own pale, wild-eyed face dissolved like a rippling pond and in its place came a picture that was vaguely familiar, like something half-remembered from a dream. There was a sloping hill, at the foot of which stretched a wide plane through which a river wound and turned. Amidst the trees on the hillside, there were – clearly visible and growing closer and closer – the skeletal ruins of a castle. Belle could discern the foundations of toppled towers; the great hall, with the roof caved in; the crumbling remains of walls, large stones scattered among the long grass. For a moment Belle was aghast, recognizing the ravaged remains of her childhood home in the poor skeleton that remained of it. Then fury took over once again. She no longer feared the Master.

"You said you would protect them from the ogres!" she shouted. "We made a deal!"

"I did," he said coldly. "They lived in peace and safety. And when your father died and there was no successor –"

"What?" she said. "They left the castle?" Her eyes were drawn irresistibly back to the mirror again even as his words hit her. _When your father died…_

"No, he was succeeded by his nephew, who – well, he died in a hunting accident, but _his _son lived to a ripe old age, and his son after him, and his son after him…" When she didn't respond, he said: "I kept the castle and your measly little town safe for as long as they existed, Belle. I went _beyond _our deal; they were spared from famine and wars that plagued the rest of the kingdom. But it was abandoned a long, long time ago."

Rationally, she knew he was speaking the truth. Tree branches poked through the holes in the roof of the large hall; the walls looked like they had collapsed in on themselves of sheer age. This was the ravage of time, not an attack. Nevertheless, she could not stop tears from springing to her eyes. The sight of her grief only seemed to enrage him more. ""I TOLD you our deal was forever!" he roared. "And you said I had your word!"

Belle didn't answer. She couldn't.

"What?" he sneered; his voice was almost lackadaisical suddenly, but she could hear it shaking with rage. "Did you assume that I'd let you go home for the holidays, as soon as you'd gained my trust? That you'd be spending every Sunday with your adoring daddy and that fine fellow Gaston, dragging your feet when it was time to come back here to serve the _beast _your father hated?"

"But I never – I never got to see _any _of them again," Belle said with an effort. She could not stop clutching the mirror with both hands, so hard she was afraid it would shatter. "They are all gone and I never saw any of them again."

"Not true, strictly speaking."

Belle looked up with a jerk. "What do you mean?"

He made an expansive arm gesture. "I mean I did _effect_ one last reunion."

"What are you talking about?"

"The rose," he said, "was not, so to say, _born _a rose."

Belle felt faint. "Who, then? Who was it?"

"Why – your adoring betrothed."

"So what happened to him?" she rasped.

"Well, what happened to the rose?" he said impatiently. "You watched it wither and die." He shrugged.

"But Gaston – the rose – that was not so long ago -"

"Outside this walls, that was a long, _long _time ago," he said emphatically. "I made sure of that. He never stopped looking for you, you know. He was middle-aged when I let him find me – almost elderly, in fact – but still as pompous as ever." Sardonically, he mimed unsheathing a sword and thundered in a deep voice: "_I_ am Sir Gaston, and you, beast, have taken-"

"Stop that," she said, her voice rising to a shout again. "Don't say that!"

But he continued relentlessly, like a man demented who cannot stop himself once he has started. "And it's not like you're altogether _forgotten. _The local peasant children still talk about you, you know. The legend of the young girl who was captured by the evil beast who was cruel to her, locked her in a tower and tortured her with scourges and fire until she threw herself off the tower, and came back to haunt the ruins of her father's castle…"

Anger almost blinded her. She wanted to kick him, punch him everywhere she could reach. "I will kill you!" she screamed at him as he stepped back from her lightly. "Beast! You beast! You have left me with nothing to lose!" But he laughed shrilly and shouted over her: "Try! You can try all you want, dearie, you wouldn't be the first! But there is no killing the Dark One."

Before she could react he snatched the long, tapered spindle from his spinning wheel, tossed it up and caught it deftly with one hand – and drove it deep, as far as it would go, into his own chest. The expression in his eyes was a curious mixture of pain and desperate triumph when, without taking his eyes off her, he pulled it out again slowly. There was not a smear of blood on it. "As you can see, dearie, you're stuck with me."

There was a long, shocked moment where they just stood staring at each other, still breathing heavily. The fight seemed to have drained unexpectedly from the Master, as with slow movements he finally replaced the spindle and then lowered his eyes, fingering the small hole left in the breast of his tunic. "You'll have to darn that," he said, almost absent-mindedly. He slowly wandered out of the dining room, towards his study. He left Belle frozen, with the mirror still clutched in her hands.

Belle spent an eternity sitting up in her bed with the hand mirror, staring at the remnants of a world that no longer existed. She recalled, while her memory still served her, Gaston's tall silhouette, the shoulders she'd sat on to pick apples. He had been a bit dull, she had to admit to herself, terribly stubborn, and given to pompousness. But he had been an essentially good-hearted man; the fact that he had never stopped looking for her sounded just like him. And although Belle had never been in love with him, she knew he would have made a decent husband. They would eventually have grown to love each other in the comfortable, uncomplicated way that comes from living together for many years.

She grieved for the maid who had brushed her hair every morning; for the brown-and-white dappled horse she had ridden; for the cook in his white apron and all the stable boys, the gardener with his wide-rimmed hat, the elderly knights who had pinched her cheeks. But most of all she grieved for her father, the soft white fur collar on his coat that she would rest her head on when she sat on his lap as a little girl; the red crown she would knock from his head when she crept up behind him and put on her own head, after which he would laugh his deep laugh and kneel down to pledge fealty to her. His stocky figure that would bring a stab of endearment and love at the most unexpected times, seen from her bedroom window as he strolled through the garden by himself with his hands behind his back, thinking himself unseen as he bent down to sniff the flowers. He had loved flowers so much.

For the second time, the Master was seated at his usual place at the dining table. And for the second time she stood unseen in the doorway for a long time, torn to the very core of her being. What should she do? But despite everything, there was only one thing she _could _do. The Master was the only other living creature in what passed for her life. She went in and, for the first time, sat down across from him. He avoided her eyes, and she was the first one to speak.

"I should have died centuries ago," she said. "I'm a ghost. You made me into a ghost. I should be dead; you killed me as effectively as if you had killed me with your own hands."

"I thought about it," he said slowly. "To leave, and let this castle catch up with the centuries and put you out of your misery while I was elsewhere, doing other things. You would have been less than dust by the time I returned – like that blasted rose." He laughed mirthlessly. "It would have been the coward's way out."

"But you didn't kill me."

He didn't respond.

"Will you ever?"

Slowly, barely perceptibly, he shook his head.

"You just can't let me go, can you?" Belle took a deep breath. "You kept me here until everyone I had ever known was dead and the world had forgotten about me. Why? Was it to hurt me? Or because you didn't think I could ever like you as long as there were other people I loved, and hoped to see again someday?"

He was quiet for a long time. "Maybe both," he finally said.

"Did you give me the rose because it amused you to know that I was watching Gaston die? Or to bring us together one last time?"

He bent his head. "Maybe both."

Belle stood up. "I hate you," she said. "Let there be no mistake about it. But I am stuck in a period in time that no longer exists, and the only soul in the whole wide world to have been there, too, is you."

"I know."

With a monumental effort she wrung out her next words. "There doesn't seem to be anything for me to do but get us breakfast. I, for one, am starving."

They ate opposite each other in silence. No matter how inevitable this uneasy truce was, however, there was a cold, bitter seed of hatred that had taken root in Belle's stomach and would not go away.


	5. V

V

Belle looked – and looked again, but she hadn't imagined it: the door to the Master's study was wide open, but the Master was nowhere in sight. In all her time in the Dark Castle it was a first, and it was only after a moment of hesitation that she finally ventured in carefully.

There room didn't have a single window and by the light of several oil lamps hanging from the ceiling everything was half-cast in shadow, but her first impression was that, although it was a large room, it was shockingly crammed with a wild variety of objects. The shelves on all four sides were weighed down with irregular stacks of books and letters, trays of glass bottles and vials, boxes and chests, spindly instruments and skulls of different animals, small statuettes of figures she didn't recognize, maquettes of strange constructions and hourglasses; in one corner, a large easel held a number of framed landscapes, tipped one against the other, and on the walls over the shelves were displayed an array of artifacts: assorted clocks in all shapes and sizes, all indicating different times; a bow and arrow; a gnarled old walking stick. The most prominent item in the centre of the room was a massive wooden table, its surface so extremely scratched and grooved, scarred and burnt that there was barely a square inch left smooth. The mere sight of it gave her an ominous feeling at the pit of her stomach – the damage called to mind some tortured wild animal that had been chained onto the table, scratching and biting. And this was where the Master had worked at his project; the project which he could not show her even when he gave her free reign over the rest of the Dark Castle and knew there was no-one in the world she could possibly tell his secrets to.

The table was glaringly empty, however. Where was the mysterious project he had been working on all this time? Could he have simply put it on the shelves? Turning around, she started – two monstrous dolls suspended from strings appeared to be looking right at her with manic glass eyes.

"Don't be frightened, dearie, even in life they were absolutely harmless," came his voice behind her, making her start yet again, knocking clumsily into the table when she turned towards the doorway where he had appeared, silent as always.

"The door was open-" she started, but he waved a dismissive hand.

"It seemed my collection could use some dusting. So I unlocked the door."

She gestured at the empty table. "What about the secret project you were working on all this time?"

He smirked. "Clearly it's not here anymore. I traded it."

"Who on earth would want it?"

He laughed. "The only other person in the kingdom who could possibly conceive of using it, dearie." Before she could ask more, he continued: "But talking shop is so tedious, and I actually came to find you to talk to you about something more _personal_."

"What?" she asked, watching him warily as he sauntered further into the room.

"That little ruckus we had when I let you in on what had happened to your precious town and your late papa – well, I suppose it wasn't the most _tactful _way I could have broken the news. I lost my temper; it has been known to happen on occasion. Considering that on most of those occasions people died, it actually wasn't that bad."

"It's all right," she said listlessly. An apology – or what passed for it – made no difference to her, and the mere mention of her father brought back the dark, lonely feeling she had been trying to push to the furthest recesses of her mind.

"Look, Belle." As if he had sensed her changed mood, his tone was more serious suddenly. "I'm not going to apologize to you. Not just because it's not my way, but also because I see no need for it. I made true on a deal you agreed to, fair and square. But I can give you an explanation, if only because you and I are going to be in this together a good deal longer."

Belle sighed. "If you wish."

She watched him saunter along the shelves of his collection, gathering his thoughts. "After I gave you that rose and left the Dark Castle, I was out in the world for over a hundred years," he finally started. "I made more deals than I care to remember, saw a lot of people be born, and rather a lot of others die… I looked in on your town every few years… I suppose – I suppose you could say that I was putting off the moment when I had to come back here, and answer all the _questions _you were bound to have, when there were sure to be tears and grief and all that unpleasantness. One might even say that the idea of coming back was a molehill I let grow into a mountain over time, especially because I felt… well, I suppose just a tad _cowardly_. So when you dropped that very word, I might have overreacted."

"Why _did _you come back?" Belle tried to keep her voice neutral.

He shrugged, almost sullenly. "Because you sing that godawful old lullaby about the nightingale every time you scrub floors in a room that echoes, and count out loud when you put the sugar lumps in my tea, and laugh at my witticisms from time to time," he said. "And – well, there was no one out there who does it quite the same." He brightened. "So I decided I could give you a trifle, as a compensation. I may take away with one hand, but let it be known I give with the other." With that, he slid a round leather box from one of the shelves and offered it to her with an elegant flourish. Belle opened it without much enthousiasm.

Nestled on its cushion was a necklace so extravagant that it almost seemed to spill out of the box: a heavy chain of silver leaves and a large pendant, all wreathed in silver and encrusted with large, bright precious stones. It was a piece of jewelry fit for an empress, and quite possibly worth more than her father's entire estate.

"Thank you," she said flatly.

"What?" he said. "Don't tell me you're an earring girl."

She shrugged. "I'm sure it's very precious," she said. "To people who can't spin straw into gold, anyway. But what do I do with it? Wear it while I'm polishing your candelabras? There is no one here to see it but you."

"I see," he said softly. "What do you _want_, then?"

Belle didn't hesitate. "To make this castle run according to real time again from now on," she said. "A day for a day, a night for a night, and a clock that works."

The Master had been different ever since he'd come back – just a little. They had started taking their meals together, and Belle had the impression that he was making an effort to be pleasant. _He can afford to be, he has me exactly where he wants me, _she couldn't help but think, even though she had resolved not to be bitter.

There had been only one exception to his polite good mood, when he had returned to the Dark Castle from his usual unknown business in a furious storm directed not at her, but at every mirror in the Dark Castle. He had stormed around, making swaths of dark cloth materialize and sweep in front of the larger mirrors with grand arm gestures, as little hand mirrors burst and fell out of their frames in a glittering trickle of crushed glass with each staccato move of his hands.

"What are you doing?" Belle had demanded, yanking at the curtain in front of the large standing mirror in the dining room (of course, it wouldn't budge) but he had only snapped: "I guess your vain little self will have to make do without those, dearie. I don't like all those windows to peek into my home." Belle had let it go, as she had decided to let everything go. Even if he were to backslide into raving paranoid insanity, he was all she had. And although he had been unresponsive and brooding during that meal, he had made a visible effort to control himself afterwards.

But the dinner after he had presented her with the necklace, the Master laid down his spoon, reclined in his seat and said ponderously: "I have a feeling it's just about sunset. Would you be a dear and open the curtains?"

It took a few moments for Belle to realize what he had said. "Open…?"

For a few seconds they both sat stock still as Belle waited for him to burst into his characteristic laugh and admit it was a joke. He didn't. Then Belle shot out of her seat and tugged one of the curtains. It was something she had tried, both optimistically and frantically, dozens of times – but for the very first time it slid open smoothly, unfolding the first sunset she had seen since the night the Master had taken her away from her father's castle. She inhaled deeply as if she could breathe in the sight, basking in the deep, warm light of the sun sinking in a haze of pink and orange over the ridge of the mountains. For the Dark Castle, as Belle could now see for the first time, lay in a valley; smooth green fields and thick, dark forests spread out around the castle on the lower slopes of hills which grew steeper and rockier the higher they went, reaching up in snow-covered peaks that were sharply silhouetted against the quickly dimming sky as the last burning edge of the sun disappeared on the horizon.

When she looked over her shoulder, she realized the Master had also left his seat and was leaning back against the table behind her, similarly bathed in the warm light. It was the first time she had ever seen him in natural light. He had always been a nocturnal creature to her and she had assumed that he hated sunlight, but the expression with which he too was looking out the window was hard to read.

"The Dark Castle is no longer frozen in time, then?" she asked.

"A day for a day and a night for a night, you said; so that's my gift to you."

"It's not really a _gift,_" she pointed out. "It's something I asked you for; that makes it a favour, in my book."

He narrowed his eyes. "Pray tell, what is a gift in your book?"

"Something you give someone because you know they want it, without them having to tell you," she said. "You know, on my every birthday, my father would –" She broke off abruptly; she couldn't speak of her father to the Master, of all people. "I suppose you just don't know what it is to give someone a gift," she said brusquely. "Your trade is to make people pay dearly when they're in need, after all." She turned her back towards him; the sky was still peach-coloured where the sun had been, but overhead the sky was rapidly darkening. "Would you like me to close the curtains again?" she asked without looking back.

She had expected him to say yes, and perhaps freeze the curtains back in place for good measure. His answer surprised her. "Ah - there's no need. I'll get used to it."

True to his word, the curtains were wide open the next morning when she served breakfast, which they ate by the light of a newly risen sun, still hanging low over the mountain peaks.

"How is that possible?" Belle asked, puzzled, as she poured out their tea. "We watched the sun _set _through that same window last night."

"I may have turned the castle a little overnight," he admitted, taking the tea cup she handed him. "It's curious, I never paid attention to upcoming suns much, and I've seen tens of thousands."

_Tens of thousands. _"You must be ancient," she found herself saying.

He shrugged modestly.

"How old _are_ you?"

He wagged a finger at her. "Old enough to be coy about it."

She tried another track. "What did you do, while you were away?"

"What I always do, dearie. Making people pay dearly when they're in need – wasn't that your charming way of putting it? – and ruining more than a few lives….teaching, most recently."

Belle snorted. "_Teaching?_"

"Don't be insensitive; I'll have you know I taught two generations."

"Then why stop?"

"I realized I hated my students." He laughed, _nyaha. _"And mercifully, they were ready for what I needed them to do."

"I don't even want to imagine what that might – oh." Belle had been looking at the Master when she set down the tea pot, knocking her tea cup off the table with her elbow. It hit the floor in a splash of hot tea and rolled over.

"It's just a cup," she heard him say as she kneeled down to pick it up. She was about to respond that no damage was done when she realized that this wasn't completely true: there was a small triangle of china missing from the rim. She thought of the roses she hadn't been able to tear out, the statues she hadn't been able to break, the plate she hadn't been able to shatter. "It's chipped," she said. At the same time she felt herself starting to laugh, unstoppably, until her shoulders shook and she was gasping for breath. But when she reached up she realized her cheeks were wet. She had never thought she'd see the day that she would be reduced to tears and laughter at the same time over a damaged piece of china. Who was this pathetic creature, and what had happened to the Belle she used to be?

Only then did she become aware that the Master was standing over her; she felt his eyes on the back of her head, but she carefully kept her face down. "You can hardly see it-" she started, but he talked over her in a low voice.

"I will make it up to you in the end, Belle," he said.


	6. VI

VI

"Is my surprise in there?" Belle asked dubiously, looking at the unfamiliar doors in front of her. Coming from the Master, she wasn't sure what to expect.

For the first time in the years that she had lived in his castle, the Master had come to her room that morning. It had been at the crack of dawn and her room still dark when his insistent rapping at the door had awoken her. She had rolled over in her bed and hoarsely called out: "Yes?"

He hadn't come in – curiously old-fashioned and polite, she thought through her grogginess, not walking in on a lady in her nightclothes – but had spoken through the door. "If you would get dressed and join me, dearie there is something I have to show you."

She had dressed quickly, tying her messy hair back with a ribbon. When she stepped out into the corridor, he was waiting for her there. "What is it?"

"I can't tell you. It's a surprise," he had said gravely as he turned around, clearly expecting her to follow. He had led her through the Dark Castle, down a familiar corridor when he suddenly stopped, and turned towards a pair of double doors that Belle was positive had not been there before.

"Is my surprise in there?"

"Right through here, dearie."

"Do you want me to close my eyes?" she offered lamely, just as he put his hand on the doorknob.

"Close your eyes?" he repeated, bemused.

"You know – because it's a surprise. People are often blindfolded or, you know, close their eyes, so they don't see it coming."

"Oh," he said, frowning. "All right, close your eyes then."

Belle did. She heard the doors open, and although she had expected it, the sudden cool touch of his hand on hers still came as a surprise when he slowly pulled her forwards into a room. A very large room, judging by the echo of their footsteps.

"Wait here." His hand disappeared, and she heard the sound of curtains being opened and sensed the room growing lighter around her.

"Now can I open them?"

A pause. "All right."

She did – and couldn't help gasping when she found herself standing in the middle of the most massive library she had ever laid eyes on. The bookshelves covered the walls up to the ceiling, high, high above, accessible by ladders, so that the room seemed practically made of books piled one on top of the other, with the exception of the windows – mercifully large windows, with open curtains – overlooking the mountains, so that it was still a light and pleasant room despite its size. Belle found herself beaming involuntarily as she twirled around again and again to take all of it in.

The Master was watching her carefully from a small distance. "Do I take it you like it?"

"It's wonderful." She couldn't downplay her joy. Books had been the thing she loved most for as long as she could remember.

He made a grand, sweeping gesture with his arm. "Then it's yours."

"Where did it come from? It wasn't part of the Dark Castle before."

"No," he admitted. "I grew it just for you last night."

"Grew it?" She shook her head, unable to repress a smile as she looked around yet again. "How did you _know_?"

"Well, you did have a book in your hand, that night in your father's throne room. I suppose I don't know much about what you like to do – most of what I see you do, you do because you have no other choice," he said delicately. "You'll have to tell me more, since I missed over a hundred of your birthdays. In any case, it will come in useful in keeping you entertained. I have to leave for a few weeks."

"Again?" she said dispassionately.

"I'm sure you'll be pleased to hear where I'm going," he said. When she didn't hazard a guess, he mimed rattling bars with both hands. "Prison, dearie. And much smaller and more unpleasant than the Dark Castle, I assure you. I am on my way to go and pretend to want some slob's infant brat to give them a reason to lock me away."

"Why on earth would you do that?"

"I need to give a certain former pupil of mine the opportunity to ask me a question," he said.

"You're never going to tell me, are you," she said dispassionately.

"I will," he said. "Later. There's still time to tell you later." He hesitated before he spoke again. "Belle, can we begin a new chapter, starting today?" he asked. "I know you hate me, and I don't blame you – I had feelings similar to yours, a long time ago. But we are both creatures of a time that disappeared more than a lifetime ago, and I think we have no choice but to be companions, as much as we can. Neither of us can die, so as long as we live might as well see if we can squeeze a semblance of happiness out of it." He held out his hand. With a monumental effort, Belle shook it. _This is what you decided on, _she told herself, _to make the best out of it. _Nevertheless, a swirl of faces – father, Gaston, her maid – passed through her head at the same time.

"I have to warn you," she said without looking at him. "I may forgive, but I won't forget."

"On the contrary, dearie," he said, unsmiling. "I expect you won't forgive. But you'll forget."

At the desk in the library, Belle kept note of how many days the Master was gone, if only for the pleasure of being able to keep track at all. Most of her days were spent in the library where she read with unprecedented voracity, sprawled on the large green sofa, on the floor, or on the bottom rung of one of the ladders moments after she had pulled a book from its shelf. Her appetite for books had been a source of bemused indulgence from her father's household and the townsfolk alike, back in the day. A memory shot through her head unbidden – _A beauty but a funny girl, that Belle - _ who had said that? Gaston hadn't liked her appetite for books, she knew. Her father, though no reader himself, had just laughed. "Better whip up some fascinating conversation to distract her, my boy." But now she had all the time in the world – literally.

The only times she left the library were to make herself something to eat, to sleep, or to go for her usual daily walk in the garden. Old habits were hard to lose. In an adventurous spirit – the Master had been gone for fifteen days then, safely locked up somewhere – she had climbed the old ash tree again and attempted to climb over the wall; she relished the thought of seeing something other than the gardens, going for a stroll. And if the Master happened to come home while she was away, the only pity would be that she wouldn't be there to see his face.

But her efforts were met with as little result as always – the tree branch seemed to extend the longer she climbed, until she had to give up exhausted. There were still no birds or insects in the garden, and she had to admit to herself that it was still a prison – the only difference was that she had chipped a cup and could pick flowers from the flower beds, for lavish bouquets to be scattered around the library. Never roses, however. She could no longer stand the sight of them.

Belle was once again perched fifteen shelves high on one of the ladders, nosing through the volumes. The books were a diverse jumble of novels, poetry, encyclopedias and dictionaries, gardening manuals and cook books, and even some volumes of sheet music. It was as if, as the Master had said, they had really grown there in wild abundance like weeds, with no fixed order or system. She would have to organize them, she was thinking to herself, create her own system, just like the real library in her town…Almost at the same moment she caught sight, with a start of joyful recognition, of a familiar blue cover over to the right. She knew that book, she was almost certain of it. Wasn't that the story book the friendly shopkeeper had given her as a gift, once…? She leaned over eagerly – and too far. One of her feet suddenly lost its footing on the rung and slipped from under her. She crashed into the bookshelves, her head knocking painfully against a sharp edge even as she lost her balance and felt herself falling. Preparing for a painful smack onto the marble floor she had closed her eyes tightly and drawn in her arms – and it took her several moments to realize that someone had caught her.

"Good thing my time has always been impeccable, isn't it." The Master's voice was unexpectedly close by her ear.

"When did you–" she stammered.

"I just came home. I had a feeling you would be in here."

She found it hard to believe she was looking at a man who had spent any time at all in prison. He seemed more relaxed and in better spirits than she had ever seen him, and seemed almost reluctant when he set her back on her feet.

"Thank you," she said, belatedly. She was still in a state of shock, not just because of the narrowly avoided fall but also because of the sudden abundance of physical contact. _No one _had touched her over the past years, with the exception of the one time he had touched her waist and exactly three times he had touched her hand – she was practically tingling.

"You're very welcome, dearie," he said. Did she imagine it, or did he also seem just a little rattled? "I have a voracious appetite, so it seemed wise to save my only cook."

"I'll get started on dinner soon, then." She paused. "I take it your stay in prison went well?"

He bared all his teeth in his familiar laugh. "Just swimmingly."

Before going to the kitchen, Belle stopped by her bedroom. Her temple, where she had hit her head falling, was aching and she touched it with tentative fingertips. Was it swollen? Bruised? Automatically she turned to her mirror, but she had forgotten that it was still securely shrouded, as the Master had left it after his mirror rampage. And then a sudden moment of inspiration came over her. She kneeled down by her set of drawers, and hurriedly rummaged through the blankets in the bottom drawer. She had forgotten about it, but there, small but intact, was the hand mirror in which the Master had shown her what had become of her childhood home. Now, unexpectedly, it had become the only mirror in the entire Dark Castle to have survived the massacre. Absent-mindedly, she held up to her face. It took her a few moments to realize that the face she saw wasn't her own.


	7. VII

VII

For what had felt like an eternity, Belle had seen exactly two living faces: the Master's and her own. She had often gazed into the impassive faces of the people in oil paintings on abandoned corridors, or those of the statues in the gardens with their blank white eyes and crumbling noses. But those had been no compensation for a _real_, living face she realized now, belonging to a _real _living person. With an almost hungry eagerness she drank in every detail of the face of the strange young woman in her mirror, fearing that it would turn out to only be an apparition: the dark eyes, widened in surprise, the lips slightly apart, the lines of her eyebrows and nose, the high cheekbones. All the elements of a face that could have been sharp if it hadn't been softened by the loose, wavy dark hair. She appeared to be a few years older than Belle – or rather, than Belle looked – but not much.

So mesmerized was Belle by the sight alone that it was several moments before she realized that the young woman had said something too, softly but clearly audible. "_You're there."_

It was a curious thing to say, it occurred to Belle, implying firstly that the stranger could see Belle too and, what was more, that she had been _expecting _to see her. Her response, when it finally came, tumbled out breathlessly. "Yes," she said. "I'm here."

The woman laughed. "I can't believe I did it," she said, seemingly more to herself than to Belle. Her voice was low and pleasant, and Belle found that a third voice was as welcome as a third face after all these lonely years of which so much time had been spent in silence.

"Did what?" she asked.

"Find you." It sounded almost matter-of-factly.

"How did you know I was here to find? Do you know who I am at all?" Belle inquired dubiously. "There's – there's no one alive who knows who I am anymore. Everyone who ever knew me is gone."

"I wasn't sure if you really existed," the stranger confessed. "But I've always loved folk tales, fairy tales, rumours – they all have a kernel of truth in them somewhere, and I find that you can learn the most _interesting_ things when you keep an ear out for them." She raised her hands in triumph. "Like now, when it turns out that the story of the Wailing Waif is really true!"

"The Wailing…?"

The woman smiled again. Belle got the impression she really was pleased to see her – almost more pleased than Belle was to see the stranger. "Don't take it to heart," the latter said. "The Wailing Waif is the abducted girl peasant children sing about, in the farmlands to the south – the girl who was carried off by a malevolent ghoul one night a long time ago as part of a demonic trade with her father, was tormented into insanity and found her way home to haunt the ruins of her father's castle. I take it that was based on you."

_Carried off by a malevolent ghoul. _"Yes," Belle said slowly, "I suppose that's me." For the first time, she tore her eyes from the mirror to glance up at the door. The Master believed she was in the kitchen right now, and was expecting her to show up in the dining room with dinner in the very near future. She had to avoid arousing his suspicion, give him no reason to come to her room. She would have to hide the mirror from him. If he found it he would crush it, she knew that beyond the shadow of a doubt. He had been friendly to her recently, but that was because things had been going his way. If he knew a mirror was left intact in the Dark Castle, he would make it explode into a thousand crystal fragments and there would be nothing she could do or say to stop him; and later, he would offer her another piece of jewelry to "make it up to her." Or perhaps a ballroom.

"My name isn't Wailing Waif," she said into the mirror, "it's Belle. What about you?"

"I'm Regina."

"Regina," Belle repeated. Her voice was almost pleading when she said: "Regina, I have to go now. Could you – could I speak to you again, later?"

Regina looked grave; perhaps she had noticed the shadow that had passed across Belle's face. "Of course," she said.

"Midnight," Belle said. By that time she was sure to be alone in her room again. "Could you be here again at midnight?"

"When the time is right, just say my name into the mirror and I'll be there."

Belle was afraid the Master would notice something different about her as she carried in the various dishes of a hurriedly prepared meal; she could feel him looking at her, although she carefully kept her eyes on the business at hand – slicing the chicken, pouring the wine – until she had taken her place across from him. As always, he waited until she was seated. It was another one of the small, unexpected courtesies he seemed to pay unconsciously, remnants of a friendlier man who had been swallowed up by the odd, dark creature he was today.

"You seem tense," he said, picking up his fork.

"I'm afraid I might have overcooked the chicken," Belle lied.

"Are you really? If anything it seems a little undercooked," he said, chewing.

"I'm sorry to hear that," Belle said blandly. "And that after those weeks of prison food, too."

"The cuisine was not quite of the _elevated_ standard I've gotten used to," he agreed mildly, mercifully latching onto the new subject. "And I never did take to underground caverns much; there could have been no better time to allow myself some vacation."

"Vacation?"

"I like to think that I set a ball rolling, when my former pupil came to see me. All I have to do now is wait for everything to take care of itself – leave it to the next generation to make the effort and the sacrifices, so to say." He surveyed her over his wine glass. "I suppose you could do with some more company; I wouldn't want you losing all your social graces."

"No," she found herself saying, "we wouldn't want that."

Even though it was a little before midnight, Belle could no longer control her anticipation – and anxiety. She reached into the bottom drawer of her dresser, where she had meticulously tucked the mirror away again under the blankets at the very back, and sat down cross-legged on the floor beside it so that she could hide it again in a hurry. Her reflection looked back at her, both expectant and nervous; she was almost afraid to say the name out loud, in case nothing would happen, in case Regina wouldn't appear – in case she had only imagined Regina altogether.

After a last glance at her door (firmly closed) she finally whispered: "Regina!"

There was a moment in which nothing happened. Then, to her immense relief, her own face faded away almost immediately to be replaced by that of Regina, looking exactly like she remembered her.

"You're back!" Belle said hoarsely.

"But of course. I told you I would be."

"You have no idea how glad I am to see another person after all these years," Belle said. She could feel tears springing to her eyes even as she said it and tried to blink them away, but Regina was observant.

"You must have been very lonely," she said. Her voice was warm and sympathetic. "Every fairy tale has its alternate side, and I wanted to know yours. It's the reason I decided to look for you, to see if you were real. I suspected that the story was about the Dark One – whom I know to be very real indeed – and tried to see into his Castle. But all the windows had gone except for this mirror, and all I saw until today was darkness."

"That would have been the inside of my dresser." Belle paused. "How do you do that, anyway? Seeing through mirrors?"

Regina smiled. "Well, it's magic," she said. "And I've always been good with mirrors."

"The only other person I know who can do things like that is the Master," Belle said, frowning.

"The Dark One," Regina muttered. "His magic is probably the most powerful in the land – it's a pity he uses it the way he does." Her face was drawn suddenly, and Belle wondered if Regina, too, was the victim of one of the Master's deals. Irrationally, she felt a stab of guilt on his behalf.

"He isn't – he isn't really that bad," she said haltingly, wondering if she really meant it.

"Does he treat you well?" Regina asked. Belle thought she heard concern in her voice. "He strikes me as the type who would be a cruel master."

"You know him?"

"Not as well as you do, but our paths have crossed."

Belle hesitated. "I don't know if he is _cruel_," she said slowly. "He made true on a cruel deal I struck with him a long time ago. That I would stay with him forever, and he would keep my town safe in exchange – and he did, but I never stopped to think that "forever" really means "forever". But now that I'm as alone in the world as he is… I don't know if he is capable of regret, but he has been trying to soften the blow."

"A blow _he _struck," Regina said quietly. "_Can _it ever be softened? The fact that you're all alone?"

The question brought back a flood of thoughts Belle didn't want to think about; things were as they were, and she had resolved to accept that. Instead, she leaned in closer to the mirror. "But I'm not that alone anymore," she said. "Now that I know no less than _two _people."

Regina laughed, and Belle continued on the more pleasant line of conversation: "Let's not talk about me anymore, please. I have been inside the Dark Castle without distractions for longer than I care to think about. Tell me about you. Who _are_ you? How is it that you can do magic?"

Regina shrugged modestly. "I'm no one very special," she said. "I live in a cottage in the woods. My mother practiced magic before me, until the day she died in an – in an accident."

"What do you use magic for when you're not looking for Wailing Waifs?"

"Well," Regina said, "I help people who come to me for aid."

"What sort of aid?"

"I'm particularly good with hearts."

"You mean heartaches, love potions and the like?" Belle asked, puzzled.

Regina looked amused, but Belle wasn't sure why. "Something like that," she said. "But my talents are versatile."

"And are you all alone in your cottage in the woods?"

Regina's face broke into the brightest smile Belle had seen yet. "I live here with just my father," she said, and Belle felt a stab of envy along with a sudden longing for her own father so strong that it almost made her sick.

"It used to be just me and my father, too." She wasn't sure if she should be telling this to a relative stranger, but the words tumbled out. "I mean, I had a betrothed, and there were many people at my father's court – but it was just me and my father, really."

"Tell me more about him," Regina said.

The sky was growing lighter outside her window when Belle still found herself curled up on her bed with the mirror. There seemed to be no end to the things to talk about but by then her eyes were heavy and she couldn't stop yawning.

"Maybe it's time to go to sleep, Belle," Regina said.

"Maybe," Belle said drowsily. "Do you think I could speak to you again soon?" The idea of losing her new (and only) friend was the one thought that had kept her up.

Regina smiled. "Tomorrow at midnight?"

"Yes! Tomorrow at midnight."

"Then I'll be there," Regina said. And, just before her face disappeared and Belle's eyes sunk closed, she heard her soft voice whisper: "Good night."

And Regina _was _there the next night. And the night after that. And many more nights in the weeks to follow, so that Belle found herself nodding off over her breakfast or her books and catching furtive snatches of sleep on the sofa in the library to avoid arousing the suspicion of the Master. For, true to his word, he did seem to have taken "time off" of sorts, and was home more than ever. Sometimes, Belle would look at him with a sudden, intense stab of affection. _No, _she would think, _never forget what he really is. _And at the same time another, seductive voice whispered: _Why not forget? Forget your father and Gaston and the world outside. They're all gone and their memory just pains you._ And then No, she'd think again, I can't let their memories go, not yet… But at other times she felt so sure that the Master cared for her in some unfatomable way, and that there was a side to him she hadn't seen before. Like the time when she came into the library to find that he had moved his spinning wheel there, set up near the couch.

"It seemed rather standoffish to spin all by myself in the dining room when you spend every waking moment here," he said when he saw her standing in the doorway. "And it was easier to move my wheel than all this." He indicated the thousands of bookshelves with a casual sweep of his arm. "We can indulge in our _hobbies _together."

"They're not exactly hobbies," Belle pointed out, approaching him. "I suppose my books are to me what that wheel is to you; they help me forget. We need them."

"Oh, you do need those books," he agreed. "It practically radiates from the way you touch them and can't keep your eyes off the pages."

"I've loved books since I was a little girl," Belle admitted.

"You must have been an extraordinarily dull little girl," the Master mused without malice, and Belle couldn't help but laugh.

"I liked _many _other things besides," she said. "Playing explorer, riding my horse to the river banks and swimming, walking with my father…Isn't there anything else _you _love?" she asked and, when he scoffed, corrected herself: "_Like,_ I mean. There must be something else you like to do. Making those deals, perhaps?" When he didn't respond, she ventured: "The chase of it, cornering your quarry…"

"You seem to think your humble Master goes out on all sorts of swashbuckling adventures whenever he leaves the Dark Castle," he said. "But I assure you it has come to be rather monotonous; there's not much of a chase or a fight there. As often as not, they come to _me;_ I will tell them to be careful what they wish for and that all magic comes at a price; they will ignore me and claim to be willing to pay the price, whatever it may be; we strike our deal..."

"And then?"

"And then I have them." He laughed his well-known laugh. _Mwahah._

"Oh, those poor people out in the world," Belle sighed, when a thought occurred to her. "Is there no way at all to get out of one of those deals of yours? No loophole?"

He grinned crookedly. "There is the one. They would have to guess my name. Say it out loud any time, anywhere, and the deal is off."

Belle smiled as well. "Oh really?" She studied him appraisingly. "John," she said, "Sebastian Rupert Charles Will – "

The change that came over him was sudden and compete. One moment he was grinning – the next he reared up from his chair, his face twisted with fury.

"_Stop that_," he hissed.

Nonplussed by his sudden anger, Belle backed away from him. "Don't tell me one of those was actually your name," she said shakily.

"If it had been, you wouldn't be alive now," he said darkly. "You pledged yourself to my service _forever _as part of our deal, and the fact that our deal still stands is the reason you're still here when otherwise you would have died ages ago. If our deal ever were to be broken, you would be reduced to some brittle bones and dust within a few seconds."

"Oh." Belle had wrapped her arms around herself while the Master spoke, as if the reassure herself that she was all right. Despite her life in captivity, every particle of her body seemed to resist the very idea of falling apart, crumbling away into grey, dead dust… Another thought struck her. "So… the only reason I will _ever_ be here, the only reason we'll _ever_ be _companions_, is because of a deal I made a at a time when I was scared and hopeless, and sold myself into slavery to save my village?" she asked in a small voice.

The Master seemed irritated. "I don't see that it matters in practice. You have quite the luxurious lifestyle for a slave," he said, dropping back on his stool and stooping to gather up straw.

"For a slave," Belle repeated. She couldn't explain exactly why the idea was so painful when it was true that the Master did not treat her as a slave. But she waited for a response from the Master that never came; there was only the soft creaking of his spinning wheel to break the silence between them, until Belle turned around and walked away. It was at times like this that she most longed to speak to Regina.


	8. VIII

_Hello everyone! The plot thickens significantly in this chapter, so I'm very curious to hear what people think of the new development. And of course, thanks for reading!_

VIII

It was almost shocking, Belle contemplated sometimes, how quickly she had come to be dependent on Regina in the course of the weeks that stretched into a month, and then another. She could talk to the Master – but there was only one person to whom she could talk _about _the Master, and sometimes she was so eager to do so that the words practically gushed from her mouth and she found herself waiting impatiently until she was alone in her room at midnight and could say Regina's name into the mirror.

Regina usually appeared within moments, but not always – some nights she would just stare at her own expectant-looking reflection until, after several minutes, she had to accede that Regina had some business of her own and hid the mirror away again. Belle had to admit to herself that she still knew little about her new friend; Regina's clothing was always plain and dark, and what Belle could make out behind her friend was just a quite simple stone wall. And while Regina was an excellent listener, patient and inquisitive, she was not very talkative by nature. When asked she would share details about her day ("I came across two lost children in the woods; would you believe it, their father had just left them to die" or "I met a hunter in the woods today who has a wolf companion, I never saw anything like it") but always modestly and concisely. It was only when the subject of her father was breached that she truly grew animated; there was a new shine to her dark eyes and an involuntary smile around her lips when she spoke of him. "My mother was an unkind woman," she would state, matter-of-factly and without qualms, "but my father was always there. He was always on my side – to talk to me and try to help me however he could. He is such a sweet, patient, caring man – there's no one in the world like him anymore."

"Anymore?" Belle repeated. "But there used to be?"

There was a brief silence. "It's a turn of phrase," Regina said, and Belle decided not to pursue it. Over time she had become more attuned to the things Regina _didn't _say, after many hours of having seen only her face within the mirror frame. There had been a drawn, tired look to her recently, a suggestion of pain in the clench of her lips when she wasn't speaking, a gazing off into the middle distance as if lost in thought for just a split second. But when Belle asked her if something was wrong, she would smile and shake her head. "Nothing, nothing. What did you say you wanted to ask me about the Master?"

"Well, he said something very odd today," Belle said slowly, frowning as she remembered.

The Master, for the first time in weeks, had been moody and restless again that afternoon, sitting down at his spinning wheel and snatching up a handful of straw only to scatter it back in its basket again and stand up, pace towards the window and fall still again. "I'll be away on business again in a few days," he said, keeping his back turned towards Belle.

"Sick of your vacation already?" Belle suggested, unfazed. "You should take up a hobby for retired men. Checkers… or gardening."

She had grown too used to his moods to be very intimidated by them, and she could tell by the movement of his shoulders that he was willing himself not to chuckle.

"I don't think gardening will quite do the trick." He finally turned and crossed the room to sink down onto the couch, leaning back to stare up at the ceiling. "Not when it's the suspense that is killing me."

"Suspense for what?" Belle inquired. "Or is that yet another one of your deep, dark secrets?"

His head was still thrown back, expression unreadable. Then he suddenly sat up. "I might as well tell you," he said. "If only because it concerns you too, in the end."

_That hasn't stopped you from keeping secrets before, _came into her head, but this rare moment of openness was not the time to reprove him. She silently perched on the arm of the couch, looking down on him as he took a few moments to gather his thoughts, as if unsure how to tell her. A small knot of anxiety formed in the pit of her stomach, for the Master was seldom at loss for words, and she almost considered asking him _not_ to tell her.

"There's a storm gathering over the land, Belle," he started finally, "and no-one knows it yet. People call on the Dark One every day, and they _want _things – to forget, to remember, to kill, to save, to lose mothers, to gain sons, it never stops. They _want _all these things so badly, they wholeheartedly believe that the deals they strike with me are important, that they _matter _and that they will bring them happiness; and no one knows that everything we do now is irrelevant, really. Because our days in this land are numbered, and running out fast."

"What do you mean?"

"This land – this _world_ –as we know it is about to stop existing, as soon as the Dark Curse comes. It will be destroyed completely and we, all of us, will be going to another world."

Belle wasn't sure she had understood right. "What kind of world?"

"A world without magic."

"Will it be a happy place?" she asked, frowning.

He smiled, almost sadly. "Not for everyone," he said. "Not for most people. But you will be there. And I will be there. But there will be no magic."

His words hung between them for a long time. Belle didn't know what to say, torn as she was between a storm all of its own that was raging within her.

"So when is this happening?" It came out a little wavering. "How much time do we have until this storm comes? Where does it come from?"

"That is precisely the source of the suspense, dearie," he said, chagrined. "I don't know why it hasn't happened yet. All the ingredients are there, but one – and I would have thought that my darling pupil would have taken care of that, by now. It's why I have to go out again, to find out what is taking so long."

"Why would you, of all people, want this Dark Curse to hit?" Belle asked. "Your magic is the source of your power."

"Why don't you seem more pleased that it's going to hit?" he responded with a counter-question. "I thought you'd be eager to leave this place."

"Yes," she said slowly, and pointed to the large library window, through which they could see the full, green crowns of the trees outside. "But it seems odd – all these years that I've spent here at the Dark Castle, and it's only ever been summer. I've never known it in any other way; now time is finally moving again, and I'll leave before ever having seen an autumn or winter or spring."

He grinned crookedly. "I could take care of that," he said, finally leaning in to the tea tray that had been standing, cooling, on the side table forgotten for half an hour. "A little extra magic before it all gets taken away, hm?"

"That's the chipped cup," Belle pointed out, but he shrugged, sipping the lukewarm tea.

"It's my favourite," he said. "This cup always reminds me that I owe you."

…

Belle didn't relate this last part to Regina, feeling her face flush a little just recalling it.

"So I was wondering if you knew anything about that," she concluded. "This Dark Curse."

Regina's face had turned pale and set as Belle spoke, and the look in her eyes now was positively tormented.

"Do you know about this Dark Curse?" Belle repeated, more forcefully.

Regina looked away, the pain on her face apparent now. "No." The lie was obvious.

"Regina," Belle said. Her hands were gripping the mirror's frame; if they had been in the same room, she would have grabbed Regina's arms. It was frustrating to be separated by the thin layer of glass when she wanted so much to _drag _the truth out of her friend. "Regina, _what is it?"_

Regina made a small sound. It was so uncharacteristic of calm, composed Regina that it only hit Belle after a few moments that it had been a sob. "I have to tell you something," Regina whispered, "that I'm not proud of."

"It's all right, you can tell me," Belle encouraged her. How bad could it be, after all?

"It's no coincidence that I found you." Regina's voice was soft and rushed. "I didn't look for you to see if you were real, I didn't look for you to befriend you – I looked for you because I need you."

"How? Need me how?"

"The Dark One – your _Master –" _Her voice cracked on the word – "made a deal with me, some time ago."

Belle waited, with an ominous sense of foreboding.

"All I want is to be happy. It's all I ever wanted, all this time when my mother kept me prisoner and sold me in marriage to a man twice my age, who left me to his cruel and callous daughter when he died so that I am now forced to live in the woods like an outlaw. I was so desperate I called for the Dark One, to provide me with an enchantment or spell that would bring me the happiness I wanted. And he did…" Belle could have said next words along with her: "…At a terrible price."

"What does he want?"

"My father's heart," Regina said, and bent her head, crying in earnest now. "The spell requires the heart of the only person in the world that I love, and who loves me now…"

Belle's own heart seemed to have plummeted. "I'm sorry," she said urgently. "I'm so, so sorry…" All her senses told her that Regina's horror and despair were pure and unfeigned; they reminded her of the same sentiments that had engulfed her when the Master had told her that her own father was dead. And although it wasn't her crime to apologize for, it felt like a stab to her own heart to learn that the Master was wreaking this havoc upon someone else.

Gasping, Regina wiped her cheeks with the backs of her hands. "It's why I looked for a way in," she said in a thick voice, "through the old tale of the girl who _made a deal _with some monster who took her away – I was hoping there was someone who could help me, tell me something."

"I will," Belle promised her. "I can speak to him…" But Regina was shaking her head impatiently.

"_Talking_ to him?" Her voice was almost scornful now. "There is no _talking _the Dark One out of anything, Belle, and you know it. You can't even tell him about this mirror, you have to hide it in your dresser like a little girl who's afraid of her father because he would destroy it if he found it and there is nothing you can about that or anything else."

Regina had never spoken like this before, and Belle was taken aback even as the knowledge sank in that Regina was probably telling the truth.

"What do you want from me then?" she asked, frustrated. "You said it yourself, I'm a prisoner."

"But you don't have to be." Regina's voice had become low, tense. "I've come to know you after all these weeks, and to care about you. You're miserable, you're trapped when you don't deserve to be – you're _exactly _like me, and you need the same thing as me to be free and happy."

"What is that?"

"To make the spell work that the Dark One gave to me," she said simply. "That which he calls

the Dark Curse, but which is dark only to _him _because it will take us to a better place. You can make the sacrifice because the person you love most in the world is also the person you hate the most. You need to sacrifice the heart of your Master."

Belle sat frozen. _The person you love the most in the world…_ "No," she said finally, effortfully. "No, no, I can't."

"Why not? Because he just 'made true on a cruel deal' and is trying to make it up to you? Oh, Belle," Regina said, angrily now. "To all intents and purposes, the Dark One killed _your_ father, and everyone you knew, as surely as if he had ripped their hearts out. He came into your life one dark night and took you away, and you never saw or heard of any of them ever again, and they lay rotting in their graves while you scrubbed his floors and prepare his meals."

"But he was sorry," Belle said stubbornly. _You will be there. And I will be there. But there will be no magic… That cup always reminds me that I owe you… _"He wouldn't do it again if he had the chance."

"Do you really believe that?" Regina asked, her incredulous tone making Belle's resolve waver. "That it's not really how he is? Tell me – how much has your Master told you about himself?"

"Nothing," Belle replied truthfully. "He never talks about himself."

"Then let _me _enlighten you." Regina's voice was full of hate as she spoke. "Believe it or not, your Master had a family once, a long time ago, before he became the Dark One. A family he _loved, _as far as his kind is capable – but even that didn't stop him from destroying it. They Dark One tyrannized the village they lived in; he would change grown men into snails and crush them beneath his boots like they were no more than dirt to him, he made a sport of slaughtering innocent mute serving girls because it amused him that they couldn't scream. The villagers lived a life of terror. His own young son was so horrified by his father's evil deeds that he fled to another _world _because he knew there wasn't a place in this one where he could be far away enough from his father. And then there was his wife – oh, poor Milah. She was trapped, much the way you are now, just a desperately lonely prisoner until one day she, too, managed to flee and ran away with a kind-hearted seaman who took her aboard his ship. The woman wasn't quite as lucky as her son, however – the Dark One never relented until he had finally tracked the both of them down."

"And then?" Belle whispered.

"He ripped out her heart, and let it crumble to dust between his fingers as he made her lover watch. The sailor was lucky, I suppose – all the Dark One took from him was his right hand, which he cut off at the wrist and took home as a reminder that no one went against him unpunished."

"How do you know all this?" Belle demanded. "This must have happened hundreds of years ago, even before I was born."

"I have spoken to the one person who was there: the immortal fairy who gave the Dark One's son a way to escape this world," Regina said. "It's true, Belle, all of it is true. You should know that, because he's done the same thing to you. He's done it before you, he's done it to you, and he's doing it to me now – the only difference is that this time, you can stop him."

Belle sat with her head bent, as the same feelings she had been trying to push away for such a long time came washing over her again at full force until she felt like screaming.

"I don't want to talk about this anymore," she said with an effort. "I'm very tired and I – I think I'll go to bed." Before Regina could say anything else she had turned the mirror face-down and slid it under her pillow, where she couldn't see it. There _was _an enormous weariness that had suddenly come over her, but nevertheless Belle didn't sleep a wink that night.

…

Bleary-eyed and pale, Belle was up early the next morning. No book could distract her from the thoughts that were tolling through her head. _It's not true, it's not true. Regina is wrong, she has to be; she, or whoever this fairy is. These things supposedly happened hundreds of years ago, who is to say that she remembers it correctly? _

She decided to finally start the time-consuming job of dusting the entirety of the Master's collection, which was sure to keep her occupied for a few hours. But instead, perched on a stool to reach the statuettes lined up on the highest shelf, she made a discovery that stopped her heart in her chest. It was half-hidden from view among the other statuettes, casually placed on the shelf one day and crowded towards the back as newer items had joined it. At first Belle didn't even recognize what it was, had already touched it with the duster when it suddenly hit her. Yanking the duster away she leaned forward, clearing other statuettes away with both arms to make sure she was seeing it right. _The sailor was lucky, I suppose – all the Dark One took from him was his right hand, which he cut off at the wrist and took home as a reminder that no one went against him unpunished._ There, mounted upright on a wooden base on its wrist, as if belonging to a drowning man reaching desperately for the ceiling, was – pale and withered, but unmistakable – a man's right hand.


	9. IX

_Hello everyone! I hope you all enjoyed the holidays and are looking forward to a great New Year's Eve. It looks like no-one was very sympathetic towards Regina's cause, but unfortunately Belle doesn't know her like we do... As always, I would greatly appreciate feedback on where the story is going, and thank you for reading!_

IX

The Master had kept his word: when Belle awoke early the next morning and opened her curtains, she realized instantly that the gardens around the Dark Castle were completely transformed. The only way she had ever known them was under the heady, warm stillness of summer, the trees green and motionless. But today, the crown of the tree under her bedroom window was a restless rustle of copper and deep red. She dressed hurriedly, impatiently searching through her wardrobe for a (hitherto unused) woolen dress and cape before practically running out of her room before the autumn vision could disappear.

"I told you," the Master said. "What better way to celebrate the end of a magical era than by indulging in a little time-manipulation? There's a certain poetry in it, isn't there – you'll get to see the Dark Castle in all its seasons one time before we come full circle and it all goes forever, leaving us to start anew."

He had materialized, dressed in a warm dark cloak and hat, just as Belle was prying open the large front doors. She had been startled to discern him in the dark and worried that a flush of guilt had shown on her face. But he had gallantly offered his arm – which she took – and they had sauntered out together, onto the winding garden path that meandered away among the trees and high grass. The air was cool and crisp, rustling the green-gold-red-brown canopies of the trees overhead, and rushing along clouds even higher up in a blue sky. The air smelled of damp earth, of smoke, of moss and the pale mushrooms that had sprung up in a single night in the moist crevices between tree roots. Most of all, the gardens seemed to have come alive more than they ever did under the heavy torpor of summer – which was all the more ironic considering that autumn signaled, after all, the beginning of wilting and decay. The garden was much like her numbered days here at the Dark Castle – on its final, irreversible decline. The only question was whether the Master would be left behind along with the Dark Castle; whether she could bring herself to take his heart and abandon the rest of him. It was a question she had asked herself many times since her gruesome discovery in the Master's study, but had not dared answer. She had returned to the Master's study several times the day before, just to ascertain time and again that she had really seen it, that it was really there – the pale hand, fingers slightly balled, the index finger a little extended as if pointing accusingly towards the middle of the room, the table where the Master worked…

There were several questions she needed answered before she made a decision – but not now.

"It's curious," she said, breaking their silence. "The first and last autumn here."  
"Not to worry, dearie." His voice was full of confidence. "There will be many more in the place we're going."

_If you're going with me. _The dandelions in the grass by the garden path had become grey bolls of fluff, many seeds soaring off with the gusting wind . Belle, eager to change her train of thought, stooped down to pick one of the undamaged ones. "You know, you can make a wish if you can blow all the seeds off the flower in one breath," she said and realized, flushing, that she had started to raise the flower to the Master's face, offering it to him. Instead, she quickly brought it to her own lips. _Let it not be true, _she thought, when an unexpected gust of wind coming from the wrong direction blew it clear, almost tearing the stem out of her hands.

"That was you," she told the Master accusingly and, eyes bright with humour, he shrugged innocently.

Maybe it was the cool air, or the mad, fast wind, or the air of change and finality that had come over the Dark Castle and its gardens, but the Master was in a cheerful, reckless mood and Belle allowed it to transfer to her as if airborne. She broke into a run and he followed, dashing between the trees until they were out of breath, collecting pocketfuls of large, gleaming chestnuts and particularly colourful leaves, climbing trees like children – although Belle steered clear of the ash tree near the garden wall.

It was well into the afternoon when the chill got into their bones at last, and they returned to the Dark Castle, windswept and with icy fingertips and noses.

They upended their pockets of autumn finds onto the dining room table in a scattering of chestnuts and a rustle of leaves. At a single hand gesture of the Master flames roared up in the fireplace and died down again. "This is what I always used to do in autumn," he said, gathering all the chestnuts together in front of him and pulling out a small pen knife. He sliced the glossy shells quickly and expertly before carefully feeding them into the glowing embers. "Roasted chestnuts."

Belle watched the deft way he handled the pen knife and arranged the chestnuts in the smoldering ashes. She thought of Regina's story about the Master's wife and child; she thought of the disembodied hand in the Master's study; looking at his back, his head bowed attentively to his work with almost endearing concentration, she knew she had to find out if all of Regina's story was true, if he was as much of a monster as she said he was. She had put off asking him questions when they were in the garden, but the consequent period of rest would have to be the right time.

She waited until he had moved the chestnuts onto a platter and offered it to her, the blackened shells cracked open to reveal the fragrant, honey-coloured inside.

"It's hot," he warned, juggling two himself.

"You're very considerate."

"I wouldn't want you to do the dishes with burnt fingers."

She wisely ignored his comment, regarding him pensively. "You said you always used to roast chestnuts in the autumn," she said. "Did you mean by yourself?"

She could see his smile fade instantly, the atmosphere of camaraderie dissipating, but forced herself to continue. "I've had a… a couple of years to look around, you know. And upstairs there's clothing – small – as if for a …child?" She thought of the intact boy's room she had found, the tunics and trousers nearly large enough to fit her.

The Master had gone very quiet, staring down at his plate of chestnuts. He volunteered no information, so Belle pressed further: "Was it yours, or was there a son?"

The silence stretched uncomfortably until he replied after all. "There was. There was a son. I lost him." A pause. "As I did his mother."

"Ehm…I'm sorry." Belle's heart tightened painfully in her chest even as she heard herself utter the generic platitude. _Don't ask further, don't ask! _part of her urged her. "Lost how?" she prompted, as gently as she could, but to her horror, the Master looked away at the question.

"My son is in another world and my wife is dead." The words rang out flat and indifferently – but she had already seen the expression on his face before he averted his face, the fierceness in his eyes, and she knew with complete and terrifying certainty that it was true. His son was in another world. His wife had died by his hands.

They picked over their chestnuts in silence, although neither of them was remotely hungry anymore. Belle's thoughts had taken a turn that was both somber and, for the first time, determined. Although painful, she had to accept that she was no longer a good judge of personality – isolated from the world, completely dependent on the Master as her only way to still feel alive and sane. Of course she was bound to close her eyes to a lot of his evils; and now that she was certain that Regina had told her the truth, the question remained if she still had enough morality left. If enough of the old Belle was left in her to do what was right.

…

"Regina." Belle's voice was an urgent whisper into the mirror. "Regina!"

It was an unusual hour – a little after four in the afternoon – and she had never spoken to Regina this early in the day before, and wasn't sure if her friend would appear. When she did, Belle had the impression she looked different: her hair was elaborately pinned up, making her look older, more sophisticated; there seemed to be an edging of silver to her black collar.

"Belle," she said. She didn't seem angry after their last encounter, merely relieved to see her. "I wasn't sure if I would be hearing from you at all, let alone this early."

"I need to talk to you. About that spell of yours, the one that brings happiness…"

"Yes?" Regina asked, her face brightening.

"How _could_ I sacrifice his heart? Even if I did agree to do it," she added quickly. "He can't be killed, he showed me that himself – I have seen him stab himself in the chest with a spindle, and he was completely unscathed."

"There is one blade that can do it," Regina said. "A dagger, to be more precise – it is bound to be in the Dark Castle somewhere. He would keep it close because it is the only chink in his armour; but he has also kept it hidden away from windows I can see through – any mirrors, silver trays, all reflecting surfaces. That means you're the only one who could possibly find it."

"But how would I recognize it?" Belle wondered aloud, thinking of the Master's study full of jumbled artifacts, the many nooks and crannies of the Dark Castle.

"You'll know it," Regina said emphatically, "because it will have a name inscribed on the blade."

"Whose name?"

"Why, _his_ name, Belle."

…

The Master's muttered "Good night" after a very quiet dinner the night before had, it seemed, been his goodbye; he had left on his business overnight, leaving a deserted Dark Castle in which Belle could commence some business of her own: finding the dagger.

She spent several fruitless hours rummaging through the Master's study, overturning his bedroom, meticulously studying his spinning wheel, and upending every item in the red dining room.

This isn't working, she told herself, taking a moment to sit down at the dining room table. Think, think. He keeps it hidden from Regina, who can only look through mirrors, she told herself, immerging herself as much as she could into the Master's mind, the way she had come to know him over the years. Where is the best place to hide something from a mirror? After a few moments of silent contemplation, it suddenly occurred to her. The best place to hide from a mirror is _behind _a mirror.

She went from mirror to mirror, looking behind each one, but was disappointed each time. In addition, she was beginning to get frustrated; her instincts told her that it was the right place to look, so why couldn't she find the dagger?

She returned wearily to the library and stared out the window, into the garden. It was then that she realized there was one mirror she had overlooked.

…

The surface of the pond was smooth and without a ripple that day, reflecting the pale white sky overhead and the completely bare tree branches. All the leaves had fallen overnight; where yesterday had been a windy, zesty autumn day, today was very still, not a breeze disturbing the thick layer of leaves on the ground. All was almost as if magically suspended in time again - the only movement was Belle, sending ripples out across the surface of the pond when she stepped into the water. It was cold, breathtakingly cold. She had taken off her shoes and cloak and, after a moment's consideration, her dress and laid them out neatly folded on the grass. The plain white slip she wore underneath offered little protection from the cold, the skirt floating out around her as the water crept to waist-level, goosebumps rising on her bare arms and her numb feet sliding in the soft mud underfoot. It took her all her will power to finally take a deep breath and immerge herself completely, holding her head under water and her eyes open for ten counts before coming up again gasping.

The pond was big and irregular-shaped, but Belle now knew that it was also much deeper than she had thought – more like a small lake than a pond. From the point where she stood, the ground only sloped steeper and steeper and she had seen nothing on the pond floor that looked out of the ordinary at first glance: just the same kind of soft, sandy mud that she had sunk into up to her ankles now and where a dagger could be concealed just as easily.

She considered for several moments, teeth chattering. Her instincts told her that the Master would have hidden the dagger here; but the lake was so deep and large that there was no way she could search the bottom properly, coming up for air taking so long that she would only be able to search for seconds at a time or risk losing consciousness on her way to the surface. She imagined coming to float face-down and drowning, the Master finding her cold white body when he returned home… and then it occurred to her: _I can't die. _She had survived for hundreds of years because her deal with the Master still stood, he had told her so himself. She couldn't die.

It was quite another thing to put this theory to the test, however. Belle had swam out towards the middle of the pond to where she couldn't stand; but the first few times she spread her arms and legs and let herself float on the water with her face down, her instincts had prevailed when her lungs shrieked for oxygen and she had turned her face sideways, slurping air. _Come on, _she thought, losing patience with herself, _you need to know, you need to _do _something… _and she pressed her face down into the cold water again, and persisted.

It was painful, more so than she had expected; she couldn't stop her body from going through the motions of breathing, and with each excruciating breath she let air bubbles – fewer and fewer each time – out and cold water into her lungs. _This is what drowning feels like_. She squeezed her eyes tightly closed, almost resenting her own body's resilience because it prolonged the pain until, finally, it was over. _I have drowned myself, _she thought. _I should be dead._ The pain was gone and her lungs full of water, and slowly and heavily she began to sink down into the quiet, cool green gloom of the pond. She cracked open her eyes, alert for any water creatures – fish, plants – but there were none; the pond was like a great, still, empty chamber with a shimmering light ceiling. The floor of the pond was slowly approaching, and she decided to start swimming before she ended up with her face in the sand. Slowly and effortfully at first as if having to rouse a body that was asleep independently of her mind, she began to move her arms and legs. Movement came with greater ease as she fell into the familiar motions of swimming, low over the pond floor. The problem of finding the dagger remained, she realized; the pond was still vast, the floor generally smooth and sandy, with the occasional jutting rocks. She would have to search every inch of it.

But then, drifting a little forlornly for several minutes in the hopes of some clue, she saw something that she had initially missed in the semi-dark: close to the middle of the pond, where it was deepest, was what seemed like a formation of pale, uneven rocks. By lack of a better place to start looking Belle swam towards it, only realizing when she was almost upon it that, half-buried in the sand, there were the skeletal remains of what had been an enormous animal. Belle saw a long tail, the vertebrae scattered in an uneven line… a crooked back leg… a massive rib cage half-sunken into the ground…when she reached the head she finally realized that she was looking at the skull of a crocodile, grinning a mouthful of crooked razor teeth and dark, empty eye sockets. The Master's guard dog, dead for a long time; no wonder there were no fish or ducks in this pond.

Belle knew where she had to look first, and with great trepidation she grabbed hold of the creature's upper jaw with both hands. The behemoth had been so large that she could actually fit her hands between his teeth, and the bone was hard and smooth to the touch. With difficulty, she then wrenched it up, setting her feet on the lower jaw to give her leverage. The skull alone was as long as Belle was tall, and it was a feat she would never have been able to perform on dry land. Propping the upper jaw heavily on her shoulder, she reached inside the behemoth's mouth. As she did, she was overcome by a sudden fear that the crocodile would be roused by this first intrusion after years of complete quiet, and would come suddenly to life and clamp down on the shoulder she had so helpfully wedged inside his mouth. To make matters worse, Belle had kicked up a lot of loose sand on the bottom which came up in a cloud that stung her eyes and made it hard to see. She groped around, fingers scrabbling inside the bony cavity where, as it turned out, a considerable number of objects had been gathered over the years. Belle pulled one out at random – squinting in the poor light, she could make out a tin alarm clock, of all things – which she discarded, reaching inside again and praying she wouldn't pull out a human skull next. Then, just when she was about to give up and search elsewhere, she felt something sleek and metallic, flat and sharp; it almost slid from her fingers again before she had realized what she felt, but she managed to clench her fist around it tightly. Withdrawing her arm she let the crocodile's mouth fall shut again and, eyes closed against the cloud of churning mud, she kicked off from the creature's flat head, back to the surface.

…

Bursting onto the bank, water pouring off her, she heaved up more water than she had thought human lungs could contain before she could draw her first breaths, even as water continued to trickle down her chin. Her lungs tingled painfully with each breath, but she breathed again – her deal with the Master had some benefits, after all. And with the Master in mind, she at last turned to the object she had dropped on the grass beside her.

It was, as she had thought, a dagger: a slender and deadly object of cold steel with a waved blade that was brightly stained on one side where she had sliced the palm of her hand open when she grabbed it. Letters had been engraved on one side of the blade and, soaked and kneeling on the grass, she carefully turned it sideways to read the strange name they spelled out: _Rumpelstiltskin._


	10. X

_Hey everyone! My apologies for taking such a long time to write this chapter; I moved to another country since posting the last one, so it's been a little hectic __. However, if you're fans of Disney (and/or booze), this is your chapter! PS to KnifeInTheCrayonBox: The idea with Rumpel's name is that it breaks the curse (and thus ends Belle's life) the moment she says it out loud. Maybe it's a confusingly small difference, but I was thinking of the actual act of choosing to utter someone's name breaking their deal, instead of passively knowing it._

X

The Master returned on the first day of winter.

Yet again, Belle awoke to find that the Dark Castle had transformed overnight: rooftops, ledges and every tree branch was laden with a thick layer of snow, diamond-clear icicles lined the roof's gutters and the pond had turned into a smooth field of dark ice.

In the afternoon Belle went out into the garden, wrapped in her warm cloak and carrying a small bag of bread crumbs. It was something she had always done on snowy days back home, accompanied – as often as not – by her father. The memory had swam up from the thickening mist that was her past as she was having her midday meal, and she had acted upon it immediately. But of course, she thought now, looking up at the empty tree branches, there were no birds in this garden. She kept walking towards the wall, however; perhaps birds would have ventured there, and she liked walking through the ankle-high snow that crunched underfoot, and the cold air that made her face tingle. She knew the garden like the back of her hand by now, recognizing each bush and tree root under the thick snow. And yet it was even more lonely than usual: the snow was so completely unblemished that it was more obvious than ever that there was no other sign of life than her own solitary trail of footsteps.

Belle came to a halt near the wall and was ready to turn back to the castle when a staccato volley of twittering drew her attention. Only a few yards away a scattering of brightly coloured little birds had descended, strutting around and actively – though futilely – pecking at the snow.

With careful, slow movements, like her father had taught her, Belle reached into her bag and sprinkled a handful of crumbs at arm's length in a trail towards her. The birds descended upon the food eagerly enough, hopping ever closer. Belle took some more breadcrumbs and, crouching down, extended her hand. The most impertinent of the birds, after a moment's pause, hopped onto her hand and ate, pecking pertly, before looking up at her with beady eyes and singing a long, silvery, ululating note. Belle sighed. "Bluebirds don't occur in the mountains," she said loudly. "And they don't sound like that."

"Well, _excuse_ me," came a familiar, affected voice. Turning her head she saw the Master's slight figure, reclined against a tree like a forest sprite, watching her. There was no trail of footsteps leading to him, and he was dressed in a waistcoat and shirtsleeves – he must have just returned from the outside world, where it was still late summer. The cold didn't seem to bother him, however, as he sauntered towards her with his hands clasped nonchalantly on his back. "You just looked so pitiful wandering around the garden with what must be a whole loaf's worth of breadcrumbs, peering up at the trees, but no birds. They're afraid to come anywhere near the Dark Castle even now." He gestured at the bluebirds frolicking adorably in the snow. "So I made you some."

"It was something of a winter tradition," Belle said, digging into her memory. "My father and I would go feed the birds together every morning after breakfast. And the castle would be decorated with holly, and there were fires burning in all the hearths day and night. And on Midwinter's Night, when the night is longest and coldest, we would have the great Midwinter Feast; everyone in town and the villages for miles around was invited. Everyone would wear their finest clothes and the tables would be laden with food, and there was dancing in the Great Hall afterwards…"

"Sounds like a right old feast of debauchery."

"At least it was all real," Belle pointed out, trying not to sound testy.

"You have your birds."

"But we could go outside the garden right now and find some real ones," she said.

"No," he replied flatly.

"You would be there to _supervise._"

"No."

"Why not?"

"Because, dearie, everything seems to be coming along splendidly," he said. "My ex-pupil assures me that the sacrifice necessary to _set off_ the Dark Curse will be made soon. Which means," he wagged a stern finger, "that _this_ is the most dangerous time of all when I must keep you away from all mischief. Because this is when mistakes are made, or when the crazy, unexpected things come swooping in."

The image of the dagger, concealed at the bottom of her drawer, flashed through her head. _Oh, how right you are, Rumpelstiltskin. There's something crazy and unexpected coming all right._

…

Flames immediately sprang up in the fireplace when they entered the library and the Master spent several minutes with his back towards her, warming his extended hands by the fire.

"That fancy Midwinter Feast you were talking about," he finally said abruptly, "Let's have it. I suppose tonight is as midwinter as we're going to get, and we haven't had any festivities here since… well, ever."

"Do you really want to?" she asked incredulously.

He turned towards her and sighed impatiently. "Dearie, the only way to live as long as I have and stay as witty and lively as I am is to make sure you have _fun _from time to time. It's a lesson you would have had to learn sometime anyway, since you spent a good part of your first three hundred years moping."

"You've given me more than enough _reason_ –" Belle started but, seeing the corners of his mouth turning up into a wicked smile, she said instead: "So I'll have to put something special together for dinner tonight."

He waved his hand dismissively. "That's all taken care of," he said. "You run along and do something to your hair and comb your wardrobe for something more becoming than that awful thing you're wearing right now."

Leaving the library, Belle wondered why she put up with it. She also knew she would miss it.

…

It had been years since she had had any reason to dress up and, although she had never enjoyed it in the old days, she found that she relished the ritual of it now: washing and combing her hair and pinning it up with a narrow gold band; dabbing perfume, from the old bottle found in the dresser, on her wrists and below her jawline. By lack of truly festive gowns she had been planning to wear her blue dress, which was the least worn - but when she turned away from her wardrobe she found that a gown she had never seen before had materialized on her bed.

She picked it up carefully by the shoulder straps to study it: long and full-skirted and a warm golden-yellow, so much like the one she had worn the first time she met the Master that it made her heart jump – did he remember, too, and was he trying to recreate the Belle she was back then?

The dress fitted her perfectly, she knew when she had slipped it over her head and fastened the buttons; the skirt flowed down exactly to the ground, and the straps left her shoulders bare but fit perfectly around her upper arms without sagging. Carefully, she slid her arms into the matching evening gloves that reached past her elbows and wiggled her fingers – again a perfect fit. She felt a wave of flustered panic along with a fluttering excitement when she thought of the Master seeing her in the extravagant get-up, he who had known her almost exclusively in the simple clothes she cleaned in. She could see the confusion reflected back at her in the window when she leaned her forehead against the cool glass, behind which the garden was already darkening. Unbidden, a snippet of conversation darted through her mind.

_"But if I were to kill him, he would never even have the chance to become a better man. He would never have the chance to learn to trust, to be affectionate – to love…"_

_ "What he does isn't love, Belle." _

_They had never discussed it, but at that moment Belle had known it with instant certainty: "You've been in love."_

"_Yes," Regina had said. "I loved a man once. He made me feel like we could run away together and be free until the day we died; your master is the one who keeps you locked up and holds you prisoner. I know that you're young and have been away from the real world for a long time, but please don't tell me you really believe that is love, Belle." _

…

The table in the dining room was weighed down with so many platters heaped high with food that it was several moments before Belle discerned the Master, lighting the candles in a tall candelabra. He hadn't heard her come in and for a moment she had the opportunity to observe him unnoticed – the earnest, focused look on his face, lit by the warm light of the candles. Then she spoke, purposefully loud, to break the moment.

"Why on earth did you abduct me here to cook your meals when you do such an excellent job of it yourself?"

"Perfection gets dull, I suppose," he said without looking up, "I enjoy the diversity, the suspense – I never know whether my meal is going to be undercooked, burnt or oversalted this time."

"Oh, you liar."

"You're not that bad," he amended readily. "Although of course, you had years and years to practice." Last candle lit, he finally looked up at her and something might have flitted across his face for a moment before he composed himself. "I see I should have taken a hand in your wardrobe earlier," he said, gallantly stepping forward and holding out his hand for her to take. He had dressed up himself for the occasion, she noted as he led her to her seat, complementing his simple black breeches and white shirt with a black waistcoat embroidered exquisitely in grey and silver.

He poured two glasses of a dark ruby wine, handed her one and lifted the other high. "To our first and last Midwinter's Feast in this world," he said. "May there be many more in the next."

"Hear hear." Their glasses collided in a soft clang of crystal, and Belle drank deeply while the Master leaned over to cut the roast goose.

The meal was more lavish than even the most extravagant Midwinter Feast Belle could remember; even between the two of them they barely made a dent in the endless number of impeccably prepared dishes. When they finally laid down their cutlery their plates were removed – rather alarmingly – by the candelabra, coming to life with stiff movements and scuttling away with a metallic clatter.

"Where else was I going to find waiting staff on such notice?" the Master said simply in response to Belle's look, before the candelabra returned with several plates of desserts wedged into its arms, the centerpiece of which was a massive, completely unseasonable blueberry pie.

" I think we'd better not leave the cutting of the pie to the candelabra," Belle said, standing up. She had already stripped off her long yellow gloves so she wouldn't stain them, and only realized her mistake when she reached for the knife and the Master suddenly grabbed her wrist, turning her hand palm-up. "You seem to have been doing a little too much cutting yourself," he said pointedly.

In the candle light the cut in her hand, left by the dagger when she clenched it in her hand as she swam from the bottom of the pond, looked especially deep, the edges raw and inflamed.

"When I was cutting bread for breakfast –" Belle started, but broke off with a sharp intake of breath when a hot, searing sensation shot through her hand that resolved into a warm pins-and-needles that pooled in the palm of her hand. Held between the Master's two hands, her own was rapidly healing, the skin on the ends of the wound fusing into pink, unblemished skin that spread towards the middle. _Magic used to do good,_ she thought, with an odd, clenching sensation in her throat.

"There," the Master said, releasing her hand. "I like my blueberry pie without blood."

" Actually," she said, "I'm not very hungry anymore."

…

They had quickly agreed to go for a stroll in the garden between courses, and made their way through the garden side by side. The garden was unusually bright, the snow lighting up under the clear starlit sky, and quiet other than their footsteps and the brush of Belle's skirts on the snow. As if by unspoken agreement, they came to a halt by the side of the pond and looked out in silence.

It stretched out completely smooth and dark, Belle though, like a dance floor.

"Did you ever go ice skating?" she asked without thinking.

"Sure," he said, following her gaze to the frozen pond and almost at the same time Belle had the curious sensation of growing taller. Drawing up her skirts, she realized that skates had arisen soundlessly beneath her feet.

"Really?" she said, laughing a little nervously even as they already stepped closer to the pond's edge. "It's been years and years since I last did this."

"Me too. But tonight is a night of lasts, after all."

"I suppose you're right." And they stepped out onto the ice.

As she had thought, her movements were clumsy and uncertain at first. Within the first six strokes her foot shot out from under her and she only barely managed not to sprawl onto the ice. "Careful," the Master said and, after only the briefest of hesitations, he reached out and took her hand as they skated out onto the smooth, frozen pond under the star-spangled sky. Neither of them felt the need to speak, and all was quiet except for the scrape of their skates over the ice below and their breathing, forming in small white clouds in front of them.

Belle felt herself inside her snow globe again – in the world outside the walls, it was summer; in the microcosmos that was the Dark Castle beneath its invisible dome, it was a magical winter night. But this time it was different, because she was not alone. The only time when she didn't feel like a solitary ghost haunting an abandoned castle was when he was there, she realized. To bicker with and hate and love. Because there was no denying to herself, this late in the game, that she did love him as much as she hated him, in the desperate and deranged way that no one would ever be able to understand.

But in the mud, deep deep down in the cold darkness beneath her feet, she knew there to be an empty place in the crocodile's jaws where the dagger used to be. She suddenly dreaded the thought of what she would have to do with it, where she would have to bury the razor-sharp point. And at the same time she was overcome by a desire to say the Master's name out loud, just once – so that she could feel like he wasn't so much her master as her equal. That they were, literally, on a first-name basis. But she effortfully bit back the strange word – _Rumpelstiltskin – _because they _weren't _on a first-name basis, and they never could be as long as they were here.

"Wait," she said, slowing to a halt. He spun around to face her.

"What is it?"

She opened her mouth and closed it again. She wasn't sure what she wanted to say; she knew what she wanted to _do _– to lay her hand on his chest, over his heart; to lean in close and –

"How about we go back to the Castle," she burst out abruptly, "and I break out the booze?"

…

They started off with cognac, poured carefully into delicate little glasses in the dining room. Two glasses later they moved on to cherry liquor. Finally, they settled on the couch in front of the fire place in the library with their glasses and several bottles, and cut big, oozing wedges out of the blueberry pie that they ate with their fingers.

"I think I might actually miss this place," Belle said, looking blurrily around the massive library. "When we're in the next world."

The Master chuckled to himself quietly, then said: "No, you won't."

"How would you know?"

"Because," he said, tapping her on the cheek (he had been aiming for her nose), "you won't remember a thing about it. Any of it."

She stared at him, wide-eyed. "How so?"

"Because," he said, spreading his arms in a gesture that sloshed whiskey over the couch, "the Dark Curse wipes everyone's memory of this place. Completely blanco. You'll think you've always lived in the world without magic. No deal; no enforced servitude; no dead family. We start with a completely clean slate."

Belle frowned, trying to comprehend it. "But then how do you know we'll even know each other, in the next world?"

"The skeleton of this world as it is at the moment the curse strikes will be preserved. Children of lost fathers will stay lost to them; lost princes stay lost; but grandmothers and granddaughters, crickets and carpenters, will stay together…As long as we're together when the curse hits, we'll be together in the next world." Belle lost him when he started about the grandmothers and crickets and decided another glass of wine might clear it up.

"What about you?" she asked then. "Will you forgot, too?"

"Oh no," he said, wagging a finger, "a man can't be fooled by his own illusion."

"You'll remember everything?"

"Yes."

She took another long gulp. "Are you going to tell me about this place?"

"No."

"Why not?" she demanded.

"Why not tell you how I made you trade in your freedom to scrub my floors for three hundred years?"

"Right."

"For one thing," he said, "you'd never believe me." They stared at each other wordlessly for a moment. Then they both shrieked with laughter.

"I think you've had _quite _enough of that," he said, prying the bottle from her fingers.

"It's nothing compared to what they drink at the Midwinter Feast at home," she countered indignantly.

"Speaking of which – didn't you say they'd _dance _after that midwinter shindig? Come on." He stood up, grabbed her hand and pulled her up off the couch until, laughing, she relented. She had kicked off her shoes and stripped off the gloves, and his waistcoat hung unbuttoned, but Belle tried to retrieve the decorum and memory of long-ago dance lessons. She took one of his hands and laid the other one on her waist. "Start on the left foot. One-two-three, one-two- you're not doing it right," she slurred, but then gave it up and they twirled and twirled around the room. The Master had begun to sing an old song under his breath and, after a few moments, Belle recognized it as a song about old tales that used to be sung at her father's castle. "Certain as the sun rising in the east," she joined in, a little breathlessly, "tale as old as…" They both fell silent at the same time.

"I forgot the rest."

"Me too," she said, frowning. "I'm sure I used to know all the words, but it's too long ago."

"We'll learn new songs," he said, "after."

…

The fire in the hearth had died down to glowing embers when Belle slowly and effortfully opened her eyes. In the pale, grey light of very early dawn it took her a few moments to realize that she was still in the library. The Master was sprawled on the couch next to her, one arm outflung, and her head was resting on his shoulder. She heard his deep, calm breathing and realized that he was still fast asleep. She sat up, careful so as not to awake him, and sat on the edge of the couch for a few minutes looking down at his sleeping face in the glow of the dying hearth fire. Called to reality by the beginnings of a thudding headache between her temples and the light of a new day outside, she cursed herself for losing sight of everything the night before. _I think I might actually miss this place, when we're in the next world… will you tell me about this place, in the next world? _When in fact, there would be no _we _in the next world. She did not know what it would be like, there – but it would be a world without him.

With a heavy feeling, she gently tucked his outstretched arm back by his side. Then she tiptoed from the room and closed the door softly behind her.


	11. Chapter 11

XI

"Have a seat, dearie, you're making me nervous."

Belle had been fixed to the dining room window for several minutes. Behind her, the Master was having his breakfast; she could hear the gentle clink of his tea cup – the cracked one, his favourite – on the table behind her.

"Have you seen this?" she asked in reply.

There was the scrape of his chair legs on the floor, and she felt him come to stand behind her.

Just below their window, the garden lay in the peaceful, enchanted bloom of spring; on the other side of the garden wall, the world appeared to be in turmoil.

Flights of birds, of all kinds and sizes, trekked by in the distance, their winged figures clearly set off against the blue sky. From the bushes in the distance small flocks of animals – deer, rabbits, boars, badgers – burst from the bushes at irregular intervals, rushing across the fields before disappearing again in the shrubs on the other side. All animals traveled in the same direction, running away from the same thing.

"They're fleeing," the Master said pensively behind her, as if he had read her thoughts. Belle could hear him stirring his tea, but couldn't bring herself to face him. In the two days since she had gotten so recklessly, _idiotically _drunk with him he had acted as if nothing out of the ordinary had happened, and she had played along – with some difficulty. "Fleeing, poor buggers," he repeated. "They don't know exactly from _what_, of course, but animals have keen instincts. All the necessary ingredients but one have been assembled, and they can sense that this world is tottering on the brink, and the suspense is driving them mad. It's almost enough to drive _me _mad," he added mildly, slurping his tea.

_That makes two of us. _She turned around and, without looking at him, said: "Looks like we're low on jam," before marching out of the room.

…

Minutes later, Belle crept into her room instead. Kneeling down by her chest of drawers she slipped her hand into the bottom drawer, just to make sure the object she was looking for was still there. It was – and she wasn't sure whether she was relieved or disappointed that it hadn't disappeared as magically as it had appeared. Feeling the shells and string between her fingers, she thought back to a conversation she had had the day before.

"Regina, I don't know if I can do it."

"It has to be you, Belle; you have the dagger, you're inside the castle, and there is no-one whom he trusts enough to get close enough to do it."

"That's what's killing me."

"Did he tell you that you won't have any memories of your old life once the spell has taken place? None at all. You will only have to live with the guilt for a day – less than a day, even. Within hours of making the sacrifice, we will be in the next world and no one will ever know what you did, including yourself."

"_You_ will know."

"But I swear I'll never tell you. You wouldn't believe me if I did. You'll be able to start all afresh."

It sounded similar, eerily similar, to what the Master himself had said to her. But there were many more questions to be answered.

"How would I even leave this place?" Belle asked. "There is no way out."

"I'll think of something."

"But how would I do it?" Belle whispered. "If the Master dies, so do I – the reason I'm alive now is because I'm bound by a deal with him."

"I'll think of something," Regina repeated.

And she had. The mirror lay face-down at the bottom of the drawer when Belle picked it up the next morning, and although she could have sworn it lay perfectly flat there turned out to be something coiled underneath it – a shell necklace.

"Regina," she had said into the mirror, and her friend's face had appeared within seconds. She held up her find. "What is this?"

"It's from a place called Neverland," Regina said, "where the people are forever young and never die. I purchased it from a captain whose ship sails there sometimes. Wear it when you take your Master's heart, and it will keep you alive until the curse is activated."

"Are you sure?" Belle asked, studying the necklace closer. It looked like it could have been made by a child after a day on the beach, braided of long, dry grass and hung with unremarkable white shells that could have come from anywhere. No heavy chain of gold or silver, no mysterious amulets; she could have torn it to shreds between her fingers without effort.

"Absolutely," Regina said, "just put it around your neck and, whatever you do, don't take it off."

"And the way out of the Castle?"

"The Dark Castle is protected by spells that have been cast hundreds and hundreds of years ago. Even after the Dark One's death they will linger for years more," Regina said.

"So I would still be trapped."

"Let me finish. have probed the circle of enchantments he has put in place, and found one way out."

"What is that?"

"The well," Regina said, matter-of-factly. "The well goes deep. So deep that its deepest point extends beyond the sphere of enchantments. I have placed a spell not far outside the castle's walls that connects directly to the bottom of the well – if you reach it, it will transport you outside. I will meet you there with my carriage when the time has come, with the other ingredients. And then you activate the curse."

…

The plan was all set, Belle thought, twining the necklace between her fingers absent-mindedly as she sat on her bedroom floor. And if all went well, she would not have to live with that knowledge for long.

…

She avoided the Master that day, wandering around the Dark Castle by herself for the very last time, retracing her steps of years ago. The dining room where she had first entered the Dark Castle, scared and grief-stricken; the rooms and corridors in which she had dwelled in darkness for years when the curtains were closed, with nothing but the light of candles and oil lamps; the bedroom in which she had cried herself to sleep more times than she could count; the little boy's room, and all the other rooms, abandoned one day centuries ago and now soon to disappear altogether; the large hall where the rose that was Gaston had wilted and died, with not a trace of dust left of it now; the series of rooms full of spun gold, twenty-six when she arrived, one hundred and forty-three now – a fortune that had lain here unused and would now be left behind. So many reasons to hate the Master were strewn around the house and yet, despite the grief and fear she had experienced here, it was the only home left to her and she was soon to lose it too. And with it the pond on which they had skated, the library he had grown for her, the dining room in which they had eaten so many meals together.

The Master spent most of the day in his work room with the door closed – almost as if he, too, was returning to those first years when she lived at the Dark Castle. She didn't mind; it was easier if she didn't have to look at him.

In the evening she had ended up in the library, perched on her ladder and rifling restlessly through her books. Even though there were thousands, she could not find a single one that could hold her attention for more than a moment and take her mind off of what she would have to do so very soon.

From her elevated position she almost missed the soft creak of the library doors opening and the Master coming in. She wasn't sure if he had seen her at first, as he made his way to his spinning wheel. It was a beautiful, soft spring night and the large windows were wide open, letting in the smell of the honeysuckle that grew at the base of the walls; she saw him look out for a few moments, breathing deeply, before sitting down by his wheel, hands moving and wheel creaking in the way that was so familiar to her by now.

"Lovely evening," he called out without looking up.

"Yes." It would not do to let on to her nerves now. She seized a book at random and clambered down the ladder, settling on the couch in an artificially comfortable position, both legs drawn up. As it turned out, the book she had taken was a cook book; she tried to look engrossed, but kept being distracted – by the flickering of the candles, by the Master's movements spinning. Lowering her book, she watched the gleaming, gold thread coiling into the basket by his side. "Why did you never spend all that gold?" she asked.

"One of my more unfortunate characteristics," he said, "is that I never want the kinds of things you can buy with gold."

"Oh." Belle could feel her throat closing up and stood up abruptly, letting her book fall heavily to the ground. "I'm tired," she said, a little awkwardly. "I'm going to bed."

She was already at the door when she heard him say softly: "Good night, Belle."

Belle could not sleep that night, and made no serious effort – she paced, took out the dagger and put it back again, lay down on her bed to stare at the ceiling until another fit of restlessness seized her and sent her pacing around the room again. The doubts and questions tumbled through her head in endless succession until. It was with dread that she looked up to realize that a soft grey light was emerging between the curtains. The first light of dawn.

She crept to the window to look out and her heart sunk to see the lush, green leaves on the trees outside. They had come full circle: it was summer again. And now it was up to her to end her long captivity at last; the Master had brought her here. Belle would get herself out. And she would do it _now._

A dry sob broke from her when she opened the bottom drawer. Then she gathered all the resolve she had. She lowered the shell necklace around her neck and took the dagger, clenching it so hard that her knuckles turned white. She looked around her bedroom one last time. Then she stepped out of her room and started down the corridor, off to find the Master.


	12. XII

_Hello everyone, I know it's been a long time, but here is a new chapter! I'm very curious to hear what people think of the turn of events._

XII

Belle heard him before she saw him.

She had crept through the dark castle, like a waif in her white nightgown and soundless on her bare feet, with the smooth, cool steel of the dagger clutched in one fist. She had gone first to the Master's bedroom, study and the library and found them empty, with a mixture of relief and disappointment. But now, slowly approaching the half-open dining room door, she could hear the soft, familiar creaking of the spinning wheel on the other side and knew that the period of reprieve was over. She thought she heard his voice and stopped, holding her breath to listen. Who could he be speaking to? She had never heard him speak to anyone but her. His voice was too low for her to make out the words, however, and fell silent – until it suddenly rang out clearly: "Do come in, dearie, it's drafty in the corridor."

All throughout the night she had racked her brain on how to accomplish the feat ahead of her – how to kill the Master. It would have to be fast; it would have to be one sure and determined thrust to the heart; she must not waver.

Belle tightened her grip on the long dagger, concealed in the folds of her gown, as with the other hand she slowly pushed open the door and advanced into the dining room. It was empty apart from the Master, who sat on the stool by his spinning wheel, which had been moved back to its old place in the corner. He looked as if he hadn't slept that night either, with his waistcoat unbuttoned and dark smudges under his eyes. Yet he seemed at peace, somehow; she could see the relaxation in his shoulders and the mild way he looked up at her as she slowly came closer.

"Spinning, this early in the morning?" she asked, straining to sound natural. The spinning wheel was in the way, she realized, she would have to edge around it without him noticing.

He sighed, running one finger over the golden thread suspended between the wheel and the spool. "I thought I might as well make it easier for you to find me," he said without looking up. "I could just see you having to search the entire Dark Castle, with that dagger in your hand."

The silence that followed was heavy. Belle felt her own breath catch in her throat.

"What?"

"Don't pretend to be stupid, Belle."

"I don't know what –"

"I said, _don't pretend to be stupid, Belle!_" His voice rose alarmingly. "It's too late in the game for these _lies_,_" _he said as he reared up unexpectedly, stepped out behind the spinning wheel…

Belle's body seemed to move separately from her mind. She had no memory of having raised her hand – and yet there was the dagger, the point poised against the centre of his chest. She pushed, just a little, and a vividly crimson stain bloomed on the Master's shirt around the dagger's point. The blade truly was sharp; it would not take much strength to push through to his heart, she knew. It could be done in an instant.

"Stop," she snapped, "don't take another step."

He stood stock still. His moment of anger seemed to have flared up and died down again; mostly he just looked wary.

"I think you know why I have to do this."

He nodded.

"You don't seem very surprised."

"I'm not."

"How did you know?" Belle asked. Her breathing was heavy but her hand on the dagger was steady.

"I've known since that Midwinter's Feast. Since I saw that cut in your hand, really. You're still bound by our deal, after all, to be preserved exactly as you were the day I brought you here. The only thing that could injure you was the only thing that could injure _me_, so I knew you'd found the dagger. And there was only one person who could have told you about _that._"

"You've known since the Midwinter's Feast?" Belle repeated incredulously.

He shrugged. "I assumed you would wait until it was summer again; that kind of sentimental full-circle thing would appeal to you."

"Then why didn't you _stop me_?" Belle's hand on the dagger tightened and the bright stain on his shirt grew, inching downwards. If the Master noticed he gave no sign of it, never once glancing down at his injury. For what seemed an eternity he seemed to struggle to find the right words before shrugging again, almost helplessly. "Because I have known for a long time that there is no justice in my walking this earth still; that I should have joined those I let die in misery in the afterlife, wherever that is, where all men are equals. So I decided to leave the decision to the only person who could make it, and the person whose forgiveness I need most."

"Me." Belle felt her shoulders hitch violently as a strange sound drew from her, half sob and half moan. At the same time, a furtive motion caught her eye and she turned her head wildly – it was her own reflection in the large mirror, uncovered for the first time. In merciless detail, as if through the eyes of a bystander, she could see the slender form of a man, arms hanging defenselessly by his sides even as the front of his shirt was soaked in blood, his head angled dejectedly down. And in front of him the young girl in white, the arm holding the dagger shaking violently now, her face ashen and her face wet with tears. It was only when Belle touched her cheek with her free hand that she realized she was crying and slowly, very slowly, she drew back the dagger and pushed it almost roughly into his hand.

"You'll have to bury it somewhere safe, because I can't," she said. "I do know, in my head, that if there is _anyone _who doesn't deserve a storybook ending and a clean slate it's you, and there would be justice in killing you now to start afresh with the life you took away from me. But I can't. I can't deny you the chance to make things right in_ this_ world, not when there's a chance you truly want to change."

His expression was unreadable as they stood motionless, face-to-face. It was then that Belle registered movement from the corner of her eye, and she realized that they were not alone in the room after all, and who the Master had been talking to when she was in the corridor. With one hand she tore the shell necklace from her neck and flung it at the mirror where it collided hard, shell fragments flying, and slid down to the floor. Regina looked unfazed, gazing into the dining room with hard, dark eyes.

"Oh, you fool," she said, her voice almost caressing. "You sweet little fool."

"Our plan is off, Regina." Belle wiped her eyes with the back of her hand. "We're going to have to make do in _this _world, trying to be happy – if you really try, I'm sure you'll find you can be happy."

"Oh, I can," said Regina. "_But not here_. I'll be going to the next world even if it means I have to leave behind my father to do it."

"Regina –"

"I suppose my mistake was relying on a well-mannered daddy's girl like you," Regina cut her off, the tone of her voice pensive but her eyes hard as stone. "I really did mean you well, you know – I can sympathize with young girls who become the victim of men's politics. But my mistake was assuming you had some grit, some backbone! That there is a limit to what people can do to you before you start to fight back. But no, you happily scrubbed his floors after he abandoned you, for years at a time, and let everyone you ever knew crumble to dust in their graves without letting you see even _one _of them alive just one last time. You weren't even brave enough not to love him."

"I wasn't _vindictive_ enough not to love him. Because everyone deserves another chance if they are really, truly sorry – and he was willing to have his heart cut out to do penance. Because people see the world differently when they love-"

Regina laughed. "Oh dear, when they _love_," she said. "Maybe my mistake was not to tell you _that _little nugget of truth – how he came to fall in love with you."

The Master, who had stood quietly beside Belle all this time, suddenly jerked upright. "Don't," he said in a low voice but Regina ignored him, eyes fixed only on Belle.

"Did you ever wonder _why _he brought you to this hell-hole? Or did you just believe that, after all these centuries, he would suddenly need a housekeeper so desperately? That someone with all that magic at his fingertips would need a human being to keep his castle clean?"

"He was lonely-" started Belle, but uncertainty bloomed darkly in her heart when the Master remained silent and Regina shook her head, smiling.

"My dear, at the time he had come close to perfecting the Dark Curse – the one that would let him pursue his long-lost son to a world without magic. The only ingredient that was missing was _the heart of the thing you love most – _where to get such a heart when you love nothing and no one? _That _is why he agreed to help a troubled duke in exchange for his daughter – young, sweet, and so pretty in her golden dress. And hoped that, as the centuries went by and she found herself with not a soul in the world for companionship but him, he would grow to love her, so that he could cut her sweet beating heart out one day and feed it to the Curse, to discard her as he would discard everything in this world. The tragedy is, of course, that somehow he really _did _grow to love you, but that he had underestimated his own cowardice." Regina's eyes, gleaming with cruel amusement, shifted to the Master, who stood frozen like a statue. "Once a coward, always a coward, isn't that right? The only reason she's alive now is because you were _too cowardly to kill her once you loved her_! Admit it now, why don't you? She's already proven she'll forgive _anything._"

"_Shut up!_" The Master's hand flashed. For a split second more, Belle saw Regina's face, the corners of her mouth turned up in a smile that was both malicious and strangely sad. Then the mirror dissolved into a million shimmering pieces that fell, tinkling, to the ground beneath the empty wooden frame and the room grew very quiet.

Belle wasn't sure why she even asked, when she already knew the answer. "Is it true? Did you take me here just to kill me after you had grown to love me?" Perhaps it was hope.

"You know it's true," he said, idly picking up the spool of gold thread and setting it down again. "Most of what comes out of Regina's mouth is a lie, and yet the truths she tells are far more devastating. But that is something that happened years ago," he said earnestly. "Of all the centuries that I have been on this earth, the hundreds of thousands of people who have come and gone in the blink of an eye, who I never cared for and forgot – what were the chances that I would meet _you? _That I would find a companion that I could love so much? That's the reason I gave the curse to the only person in the world who wanted it as much as I did, and would make the sacrifice instead, giving us a chance to be together."

"Did you?" she said, her voice cracking as it rose. "Or were you just too much of a coward to look me in the face when you tore my heart out? Maybe it was more your style to just let me crumble, like that…like that _rose _you gave me. But now you didn't even have to do that; you're letting someone else do the dirty work for you. You're letting Regina kill her father, a kind old man who never harmed anyone, for your benefit. And you're not doing anything to stop her."

"There's no point," he sighed, "Regina doesn't tarry when she's made a decision. Her father might be dead as we speak, and otherwise he will be in the next few minutes. The curse will be upon the Dark Castle within a few hours, and in the next world we can _truly _be together. Magic is what is keeping us together and keeping us apart."

"But I don't _want_ to be with you in the other world," she said. "Not like this – not because our _deal _will continue to bind us together. You wouldn't have to atone for anything, you wouldn't have to shoulder responsibility – you don't deserve forgiveness purely by merit of me forgetting everything you did to me! Not when the only reason you wanted to love me was so you could kill me for your own purposes."

"I'm afraid you won't have a choice," he said and seized both her upper arms with renewed urgency, but she refused to return his gaze. "The Curse is coming, Belle and there's nothing we can do but wait."

"Let go of me."

He did. "I will go to my study to wait there," he said. "You can join me there later, if you want. Even if you don't, we'll see each other again in the next world. I'm sorry that you're angry now, but take comfort from the fact that it will only be for a few hours."

Belle sat in silence for a long time on the stool by the spinning wheel, head bowed. If the Master had seen her, he might have assumed that she was dejectedly awaiting the Dark Curse, perhaps treasuring for the last time what memories she had of Gaston, of her father, of the castle where she grew up. But in fact, the moment she had heard the door of his study close behind him at the end of the corridor her thoughts had started racing and a plan was quickly forming. Finally, she stood up and searched among the shards of mirror glass for the shell necklace – but as she feared it was truly wrecked, with nothing remaining but ragged shreds of dry grass and crushed shells that fell apart between her fingers. Which meant she saw only one possibility open to her, and she would risk it, even though it was uncertain. For it seemed to Belle that the only choice she had ever gotten to make in her life was to make the deal with the Master. From that moment, she had been his helpless play thing, and when Regina had come into her life she had turned out to be as much of a puppeteer as he was. But this puppet was about to cut her strings, and she _would _make her decision now.

In her bedroom she retrieved her cloak and, without taking anything else or even looking back, she continued on to the cellar. She did not take a moment to mentally say good-bye to the bedroom, to the gardens, to the library; did not pause outside his study room to soundlessly mouth _farewell. _Instead, she descended without hesitation to the deepest, darkest place in the castle – the cellar beneath the kitchen.

In the gloom she could make out the well easily, its ancient edges of rough stone and the bucket on its rope and pulley. Peering over the edge, she could see the gleam of the water below: pitch black, smooth and bottomless. She swung her legs over and, sitting on the edge with her feet just inches above the water's surface, the old story came to her mind of the Wishing Well that echoed wishes it fulfilled. "Set me free," she said out loud and pushed herself off the edge. She could just hear the soft echo of her own voice before the smooth, dark coolness closed over her head.


	13. XIII

XIII

The sky hung low and purple-bruised overhead as Belle ran along the winding forest trail. Even if she had not known about the Dark Curse, the sense that the world was out of sorts was palpable. Although it was still morning the sky was darkening over the tree tops and the forest on either side was almost deserted, with the occasional sudden flash of movement of a frantic animal – a deer, a pair of birds whose shadow flickered across Belle's upturned face, a long column of ants scurrying in the roadside. The leaves were rustling frantically and her cloak flew out behind her as if even the wind was fleeing, pushed on by something massive and dark coming up behind the mountains, and trying to drag Belle with it, screaming _Go back, go back, go back!_ Belle was the only living creature in these mountains rushing _towards_ the Dark Curse, as fast as her feet would carry her.

She thought back to her long descent into the cold darkness that was the well – if she had not been under the Master's magical protection still, she would have surely drowned , going down down down, increasingly worried that she had been wrong. It had only been the realization that there was nothing to go back to the surface for that had made her continue, until she finally glimpsed a faint, white light below her. It had grown larger and brighter until her hands brushed against twigs and leaves, and, with a last strenuous effort of by then exhausted arms, she had pulled – and found herself lying panting but completely dry under some juniper bushes, by the edge of a small clearing in the woods. As she had hoped, Regina had not had the time or care to destroy the secret passageway she had arranged for Belle, when she still thought she would have emerged with the Master's heart to sacrifice.

Peering up through the trees Belle had seen the garden wall looming over her and bolted from it. The sight of _this _side of the garden wall was something she had prayed and wished for for so many years, ever since she arrived at the Dark Castle centuries ago. This was the first time that she breathed real outside air; the first time there was no wall around her; she found the freedom almost dizzying.

She found a rocky path that trailed between the trees, up the steep hill and, gathering her skirts together, she started to climb. After an hour the first fear of being discovered by the Master and taken back to the castle began to fade, and she slowed down her pace a little, breathing heavily. The voices in her head raced on at the same speed, however.

"_I decided to leave the decision to the only person who could make it, and the person whose forgiveness I need most…" _

"_Oh, you fool, you sweet little fool..."_

"_You happily scrubbed his floors after he abandoned you, for years at a time, and let everyone you ever knew crumble to dust in their graves without letting you see even one of them alive just one last time. You weren't even brave enough not to love him."_

"_He hoped that, as the centuries went by and she found herself with not a soul in the world for companionship but him, he would grow to love her, so that he could cut her sweet beating heart out one day and feed it to the Curse, to discard her as he would discard everything in this world…." _

"_What were the chances that I would meet you? That I would find a companion that I could love so much?"_

"_Or were you just too much of a coward to look me in the face while you tore my heart out?"_

Belle roughly wiped her eyes with the back of her hand.

"_I don't want to be with you in the other world. Not like this – not because our deal will continue to bind us together. You wouldn't have to atone for anything, you wouldn't have to shoulder responsibility – you don't deserve forgiveness purely by merit of me forgetting everything you did to me! Not when the only reason you wanted to love me was so you could kill me for your own purposes…."_

Her last words to the Master, she realized, had been _Let go of me._

The Dark Castle lay in a small, enclosed valley in the mountains, and Belle had been climbing one of the densely forested hillsides for several hours when she finally burst out of the trees onto a steep meadow. She didn't stop until she was in the middle, a tiny figure with nowhere to hide and nowhere to shelter. Out of breath, she turned around to look down – there, far below, was the Dark Castle, the towers and roofs and walls she knew so well, enclosed in its garden wall. There was the snow globe where she had been lonely and had been in love, where she had swam and ice-skated, drunk tea and too much cognac, lived a lifetime and yet seen only one autumn, one winter, one spring and one summer. But now she was out in the real world; and soon she would be in the _next _world.

Everything had gone completely still around her. There were no more straggling animals, and even the wind had gone completely flat. In that she recognized that the last minutes had now truly come.

"I will see you in the next world," she said out loud, eyes fixed on the three windows that she knew to be the dining room's. While she had been climbing the hillside there had been no time to feel anxiety, but her voice wavered just a little now. "But we won't be bound by our _deal. _You'll have to win me over with love this time – you'll have to be good and kind and earn it. If you have truly changed you'll do it, and if you are the beast everyone said you were, I will at last be free from you. I think-"

As she spoke she had glanced over her shoulder, and what she saw made her break off and gasp. Just as she looked a massive, dark-blue cloud had risen over the hillside like a dark sunrise, seeming to rear up towards the sky – and then it poured over the crest of the hill and into the valley, close to the ground like a half-liquid, rolling quickly and unstoppably towards her.

Belle took a useless step back, trying to compose herself. The timing, she knew, would determine her life now; she had to break the deal in the only way she could just before the curse swept over her, so that she would be in the land without magic before the magic of the broken deal could cause her to crumble to centuries-old dust. If she was a second too early, she would never make it to the other side. But it was a risk she had decided to take.

The wall of dark, impregnable smoke raced down the steep field now, enveloping everything it touched. There was nothing upright in the meadow except for her, a single small figure in the path of the Curse. Belle clenched her fists by her sides.

Now or never.

"_Rumpelstiltskin_," she said. "Your name is Rumpelstiltskin." And then the Curse was on her, engulfing her from head to foot in cloying, utter darkness.

She repeated his name like a mantra while the terrifying sensation of being torn apart and crumbling to dust tormented her at the same time. Rumpelstiltskin Rumpelstiltskin Rumpelstiltskinrumpelstiltskinrumpelstiltskin. She could feel her body drying up, curving in on itself like a dying flower and her feet and fingers trickling away to nothing, but at the same time she felt an overwhelming _pulling_ sensation, so strong it seemed to drag her out of her own crumbling body. A terrific roaring filled her ears so that she couldn't hear herself shouting his name but just felt her lips move, and when the black smoke filled her lungs so that she couldn't speak she still thought it over and over again: Rumpelstiltskin, Rumpelstiltskin, Rum…

Rumpelstiltskin knew that a deal had been broken the moment it happened.

He had holed up in his study like a miser with his hoard, reclining in an old arm chair with his hands behind his head. It was only appropriate, he had thought, to spend his last hours in this world surrounded by his collection of memories and trophies, to let the faces pass through his memory one by one. Kings and queens, princes and princesses, maids and peasants, good and evil – but the one face that kept returning, unbidden, was Belle's; the coppery hair, the fair skin, and especially those blue eyes, bright with incredulity and fury when Regina – damn her black heart – had spilled that last secret he had so intently clung to. He had set out the tea set in the dining room at some point and considered going to get her, but decided against it; she would be spending her final hours in the library or the gardens, he assumed, hating him.

For a long time now he had privately entertained the notion that, if he lived to see the coming of the Curse, the two of them would have been in this study together; that perhaps she would have grabbed his hand and looked at him with a mixture of excitement and affection.

But that would have to wait until all this unpleasantness had been wiped from her memory, he had thought to himself, and returned to his study without having tasted his tea.

"Hope your son will make you proud in the next world," he said to the two dolls suspended from the wall, and "Ahoy, matey," waving at Killian Jones's disembodied hand, set upon a high shelf. But these little quips, which usually amused him, meant nothing now. He settled back in his chair, closed his eyes, pinched the bridge of his nose between two fingers – when suddenly he felt the change. There was a cool emptiness by his side, as if someone he had held in a close embrace for a long time had suddenly vanished.

It took him no more than a heartbeat to realize what had happened, _who _had vanished. For one moment he was frozen in horror. Then he leaped from his chair and stormed into the dining room where, with one sweep of his arm, he resurrected the mirror. "You evil soul! This was _you_!" he roared, shaking with anger. "You turned her against me!" But there was only his own reflection, more hideous than ever because his face was contorted in fury – of course, Regina would be otherwise occupied right now, be at the scene of Snow and Charming's misery.

Through the windows he saw the massive storm cloud of the Curse – _his_ curse, which he had awaited for so long and now dreaded – which had already seeped down the hillsides into the valley and was advancing rapidly on the outer walls of his Castle.

A cold hand closed around his heart as the realization hit him that Belle would not only not be holding his hand when he traveled to the next world – he would leave her behind as a trickle of dust, _somewhere_ in the Dark Castle. There was not even time left to look for her remains.

Behind him on the table there was the discarded tea set, grown cold and still. With a final roar of fury and, more than anything, anguish, he seized the chipped tea cup off the table and cradled it close to his chest as the world he had shared with Belle disintegrated around him. _It will always remind me of the fact that I owe you._


	14. XIV

EPILOGUE

The room is square, the walls heavily padded; there are grills over the windows, which are small and set close to the ceiling. There are thin rays of grayish light shining through now, signaling the approach of early dawn, but Belle doesn't see it. She has curled up on the thin mattress in the corner with her eyes tightly closed. She is trying to remember how she came to be here. What came before she crossed this door and it was locked behind her?

There had been a dimly lit stone passageway at the bottom of a steep flight of stairs, a row of heavy, reinforced doors that had made her apprehensive even before her companion had opened the last one and motioned for her to step inside. What had come before?

The woman with the dark hair and the dark eyes, who had looked first incredulous and then delighted when she had seen her wandering by herself among the strange houses. She had taken Belle by the arm. _Don't be afraid, I'll take you somewhere safe. _What had come before?

She had been lying on her back on a strange wide street made of black stone, laughing in relief because all ten of her fingers were there. How did she get there? What had come before? Belle can't remember, and one miserable tear creeps down her cheek, towards her ear.

What is the last thing she _said? _When Belle pushes her memory to its very, very limit, she can still feel a strange, long name, like an aftertaste in the back of her mouth. But she no longer knows what it is.

_Sequel potential? I already have an idea, but I'm curious to hear what you think._


End file.
